


A World Without Walls

by mrtvejpes



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Dubious Consent, Eventual Romance, Healthy Relationships, Hoseok is a Dothraki, Implied/Referenced Past Non-Con, Kihyun Is a Slave, Language Barrier, M/M, Minor Chae Hyungwon/Yoo Kihyun, Non-Romanticized Slavery, Porn with some plot, Rimming, Rough Sex, Some Sexual Practices Are Unknown to the Dothraki, This Is Not a Stockholm Syndrome Story, kiho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 11:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16407764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrtvejpes/pseuds/mrtvejpes
Summary: He used to be someone. Until he was sold.





	1. Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> For E. and T.
> 
> A/N:  
> Foreign words and concepts are always (eventually) translated and explained in the story. Please, be patient.

Nobody called the harbour by its rightful name, the Bay of Dragons. Everyone called it by its old name; the only right name.

Slaver's Bay.

The sunset was approaching, colouring the Summer Sea in blood orange shimmers. Kihyun could see it foam and ripple, its breaking waves resembling heaving crests rather than water. It was as if bleeding fish and mermaids stormed right under the surface, their tails thrashing to create such surges beneath the setting sun.

He touched his arms. His skin felt too silky to the touch, the robe he wore whispering over his shoulders like it was ready to slide down and fall to the ground.

He was oiled. Hairless. They had taken the last shred of masculinity away from him. All he was now was a body, breakable and branded, the tattoo on his wrist a bracelet he could never take off. In the rosy red glow of the dusk, the ink seeped into his skin even darker than in daylight.

 _It will please your new master_ , Hyungwon had said about the mark. And it probably would. Men liked to own things.

Then again, Hyungwon was no master. No true owner. He was a buyer. A seller.

A man who liked to be bedded.

Kihyun had no name and no hope to ever gain it back while he stayed in Hyungwon's villa, a majestic white building placed on even whiter cliffs overgrown with sea flowers. But while there, Kihyun had the illusion of dignity. Even with his skin tainted, even with his own self erased, even when dressed in silk and sheer Myrish lace, he could still take and own – although all he took and owned night by night was a man whom he must despise.

Hyungwon was difficult to despise, though. He shied away from slave trade as well as he could, and those few servants he owned happened to be aging men and women who had belonged to his parents before him. His education made it easy for them to communicate in Kihyun's mother tongue – apart from High Valyrian which they both commanded fluently. Not that it mattered. Their conversations were very much fragmented outside of bed.

There was something human about Hyungwon. Something Kihyun knew he would not find in his new owner. What a funny thought.

How deep had he sunk to consider his current slaveholder human, of all things?

How could a person own another person? Was Kihyun still a person, though?

He used to be someone. Until he was sold.

The House of Yoo neither owned nor traded people. Their wealth had been built over decades and centuries with hard work and fair trade, and their vast lands could feed a whole city if it came to it; or could have, once, before the genocide. Now the lands stood barren and blackened by fire. The orchards and gardens had turned to ashes. So had everyone Kihyun once knew.

Perhaps he thought of Hyungwon as kind because he had had no role in the genocide.

It was by his kindness, really, that Kihyun lived in relative comfort and not in a piss-covered cage.

Kihyun suppressed a chuckle. He had little strength left to laugh at himself, actually. It was quite taxing to keep laughing when the whole world was set on doing that job for him. Whenever a stranger came to the villa, Kihyun was there to be appraised with stares and words that etched his skin and ego. Whenever he accompanied Hyungwon outside, people were free to talk to him and touch him, unless his owner forbade it. He'd become an object. A laughing stock.

A doll to be dressed.

He glanced down at the Myrish lace wound around his waist. There were small pearls tatted into it. Kihyun had never looked more trim.

Not even his willowy master appeared as small as Kihyun when he emerged from the house and walked into the garden. In his tokar, Hyungwon towered tall but slim. His hands held the fabric of the ornate tokar in place as a sign of wealth – he had other people to do manual tasks for him while all he had to do was walk with his hands folded.

“The bidders will be here any minute now,” Hyungwon said in soft, accented Myrish instead of his straightforward Pentoshi. He had to think that speaking to Kihyun in his mother tongue would make this moment easier.

“I know.” Kihyun's voice was only that – a voice. It had no tone. No tremor. Nothing a native speaker could grasp at to uncover his thoughts, much less a learner. “I could see the ships dock a while ago.”

“You look good tonight,” said Hyungwon.

It was humiliating to hear that. _Good_ only meant _profitable_.

“Thank you, master,” he replied as was expected of him.

Hyungwon grimaced. He disliked the word, and so Kihyun used it as dutifully as he could. It served as a constant reminder between them that once a slaveholder, Hyungwon would always be just that. With dark vindication, Kihyun reckoned it might deter the man from ever buying a human being again.

Or from selling a human being again.

Kihyun wished so bad not to be sold.

There could be no happiness in slavery, no pride, but there could be safety. Ever since Kihyun had witnessed his people burn and choke in smouldering smoke, safety had become sacred to him.

It was a sign the guest had arrived when a line of servants came out with trays full of pomegranates, oranges, and oysters. Another line brought glasses of chilled wine, all bedewed and glistening in the swelter and sea breeze. Rather than the sweetness of the refreshments, Kihyun could taste a tang of salt on his tongue.

If there was no pride in slavery, there was no existence in trade.

He stood straight where Hyungwon's servants placed him. The sun dipped into the sea like into a bottomless bowl behind him, giving him a golden halo. As the sound of footsteps and hooves got louder, the world stilled. Kihyun shivered. He no longer heard calling from the distant harbourfront, nor did he register when Hyungwon pressed an open palm into the small of his back so Kihyun would unwind.

He couldn't.

All blood in his body turned black.

One of the bidders was a Dothraki.

He felt his bones melt.

There was smoke in his eyes and too much saliva in his mouth. He could smell the sweet stench of his family's peach orchards and olive groves on fire. He could see their crop go from golden to black. He could hear his father's screech, so frightened in the face of death that it had left a deeper scar in Kihyun than death itself.

When he closed his eyes at nights, the fury of Dothraki horses would always come back to haunt him. Horses, their roaring heads. Their teeth. The men who had ridden them on that day. Even now, while Kihyun stared ahead with his eyes wide open, their figures swam in front of him like shadows wrought of the very smoke they had caused.

“Seven hells,” swore Hyungwon in Myrish, the curse uttered under his breath. This time, he didn't opt for that language to placate Kihyun. He did it so the Dothraki rider wouldn't understand his words.

Kihyun gripped the sea-green fringe of Hyungwon's tokar. When he spoke up, it wasn't in his usual controlled voice.

“Don't sell me to him.”

It was the first request – the first command – Kihyun had ever given him when not in a darkened bedroom.

“I'll have to,” Hyungwon murmured back. “The Dothraki don't buy. They take. If he wants you...” He didn't finish.

He didn't have to.

The Dothraki idea of business was “You give me your goods – I don't plunder your city.” They believed in gifts, not coins. A present given to a Dothraki would always be repaid, though in most cases, it was merely by the giver's life.

Kihyun wanted to laugh again. Hyungwon wouldn't earn a single dust of gold if the Dothraki decided to take Kihyun with him.

Except it was no laughing matter. It was the matter of his life.

It made Kihyun less bitter to realize they were in this together, him and Hyungwon. They would both lose.

He lifted his gaze to the quickly fading sky. He didn't pray anymore, but he prayed now. He prayed to the Many-Faced God, to the old gods and the new ones, even to the Seven who reigned over faraway lands behind the Narrow Sea.

 _Faraway lands._ It struck him to realize they lay closer than the home of the Dothraki buyer. The Dothraki Sea, which was no actual sea, but a lifeless, parched plain, was four times farther than Westeros.

Kihyun would never see his homeland again. If he was bought, he would be lost.

He'd never come back.

Here, he could at least nurture his wishes if not hopes. He could look at the sea and dream of ports in Myr.

Refreshed with wine and fruit, the guests ventured further into the garden. There were nine of them. Not a single woman. It didn't matter. Kihyun's family line was already destined to die out with him. He'd come to terms with it the second he'd become a slave.

One of the men was old. He didn't seem all too pleased when Hyungwon announced the price. Brittle, he walked towards Kihyun to take a better look. Halfway through, he changed his mind.

Kihyun sent another prayer to the Many-Faced God. He would pray to the Dothraki gods, too, except he didn't know any. To him, the horselords were godless people, no matter how many deities they might worship.

The second bidder wore a torak, like everyone of importance in Pentos. Heavily embroidered, the fabric snaked down his body in deep plum shades and shifted as he walked. His eyes had a similar shifting quality to them. They appeared young in his face. A slightest hint of scar tissue traced his cheeks, probably from a childhood illness. He _was_ young, Kihyun realized when the bidder addressed Hyungwon formally. Satisfied with the price, the youth cupped Kihyun's cock over the sheer silk of his robe.

Kihyun didn't flinch. He was used to being measured by buyers.

Perhaps it was a shared thing amongst Pentoshi men – that they preferred to be fucked.

This time around, Kihyun devoted his whole being to sending a message to this young man instead of gods. _You, it has to be you_ , he thought, his tongue moving in his mouth as if to utter those words out loud. He couldn't, though, so he resorted to a long look.

Kihyun kept glancing at the young bidder even when it was the Dothraki's turn to inspect the goods. He would hold the youth's gaze the whole time if the horselord didn't shield his vision with his broad body.

Willing his face to be as blank as possible, Kihyun looked straight at the Dothraki.

His hair was short and not braided despite the customs of his people. It meant he had either recently lost in a fight and had been forced to cut his braid in shame, or he belonged to a peaceful clan that didn't fight at all.

There was no such thing as a peaceful Dothraki clan, though.

Just as Kihyun's mouth twisted, the horselord's softened into something not far from a smile. With one more step forward, but not a single touch, he spoke up in broken High Valyrian. He addressed Hyungwon although he never took his eyes off Kihyun.

The whole world laughed at Kihyun, and so did the underworld with all its gods.

Seven fucking hells.

 

The travel from Pentos to Vaes Dothrak, the home of his new owner, dragged out. Kihyun's thighs were sore from sitting in the saddle all day and his palms had blistered from holding the reins too tight to control the beast he rode. He supposed he should be glad he was allowed to ride a horse at all instead of walking amongst the rest of the slaves, who limped grubby and soot-faced behind the seemingly endless line of packhorses and carts, their feet bleeding.

This grim privilege came with being the khal's younger brother's property.

Nobody else in the whole khalasar could afford to clothe his human toy in bronze jewels and garments from Myr.

Not for the first time, Kihyun felt sick wearing the traditional fine fabric of his people, the lace of his robe as foamy as the seas he had had to part with. Even in Hyungwon's house, these garments had only reminded Kihyun of what was forever lost to him.

They reminded him of his life. _A_ life.

It was something he no longer had.

It took the caravan several weeks to get to Vaes Dothrak. By that time, Kihyun's legs had no sensation left in them and Kihyun himself would give anything to be just as numb. He had no such luck. Instead, he had been growing more and more apprehensive about what was inevitably awaiting him behind the city gates adorned with huge bronze horse statues.

So far, his owner hadn't approached him on the road, not even when it was pitch-black and everyone hid in tent-like abodes of woven grass to escape the freezing cold of the night desert. During days, Kihyun rode with unseasoned warriors and women at the back of the khalasar, while his owner accompanied the khal at the very front. They had no chance to meet, and Kihyun was glad of it.

The man he belonged to was all mass and muscle, with thick thighs crafted by years spent on horseback. His face was less intimidating – at least it had been during the auction when he had looked Kihyun over. Regardless of that, he found the horselord gruesome, if only for who he was and what his people had done.

One thing was certain. Even if the Dothraki wasn't a killer, Kihyun would still find him unappealing.

When Kihyun chose to spend time with men, they resembled Hyungwon.

He didn't anticipate that the name of his former master would turn sweeter in his mouth.

Sweaty and with his tongue cracking from thirst, Kihyun glanced up at the horse statues. So this was it. He would die here, unless he was sold again first. His grip on the reins tightened. He would do anything, even beg, to be welcomed by the sight of the Chae family villa with its pomegranate trees and pallid peaks instead of Vaes Dothrak.

The city had no walls. That was the first thing Kihyun noticed. Another thing he noticed was its vastness. Markets and fighting pits stretched boundless to the mountains east of the city. Stepped pyramids and stone pavilions stood in the middle of what had to be the city center, while smallish grass huts littered the outskirts of the place.

Swaying from side to side with the slowing pace of the horse, Kihyun looked ahead harder. He still saw no walls. Nothing to prevent people from fleeing.

He could turn the horse around and run – and become bones somewhere in the desert, if a well-aimed arrow didn't strike him first.

Kihyun didn't run.

He was no rider. No warrior. He had noble blood and not a single nomadic cell in his body.

One day, he might be weak enough or strong enough to just up and die. There was no other way. Kihyun knew right then and there he had no chance to survive out there. Once he escaped the city, he would escape the world of the living altogether. He'd seen the great dead plains of the Dothraki Sea on the way, where everything could kill – from scorpions to snakes to grass which rolled beautifully in the balmy breeze.

His legs shook when he dismounted. As his feet touched the ground, an unfamiliar warrior came to him and took him away. There was no one else to rely on and listen to, so although Kihyun's stomach sank, he set out after the man. He looked behind at the smallish stallion whose presence he'd grown used to. He hoped someone would take care of it and dry its sweat-soaked hair.

Of course, Kihyun didn't expect to be brought to one of the pyramids. He'd read enough about these warlords' culture to know that buildings of stone and brick served only for war meetings or celebrations.

He didn't expect to be ushered into a yurt, either.

He pressed his lips together. At least it wasn't made of grass.

The warrior closed the door – which was merely a flap made of sheep skin – behind him. Kihyun was alone for the first time in weeks.

It didn't give him much peace.

He found the abode lived-in. There were things strewn all around – ordinary things, an ordinary man's belongings. A low desk. Clothes and leather pouches. Chests, most of them intricately carved. Maps. A fireplace glowed in the middle of the yurt, surrounded by sheep skins to sit on. Further away from the entrance lay something like a bed, except it was made entirely of pillows and furs. Kihyun saw no blades or bows in the yurt because it was forbidden to carry weapons inside the city.

The place was messy. Not filthy, but not exactly pleasant to be in. It had a distinct smell – a tad musty. But it was warm there, and Kihyun found two basins full of hot, scented water behind a wooden screen. He reasoned it meant he could finally properly bathe. He undressed and swiftly washed himself after the day long ride. He used only one of the basins, grimly aware of whom the other one belonged to.

It had gotten dark outside before he was done.

He put his dirtied clothes back on. The now dusty lace threw his mind back to Myr. For a little while, he could pretend he was at home, clean, just about to enter his bedroom with two balconies overseeing the gardens.

Vaes Dothrak had no gardens.

Smiling bitterly, Kihyun roamed around the yurt with a tired gaze. Now that it had gotten darker, he spotted a meadow of small candles in low bronze bowls. Above one of the lit candles hung a larger bowl, high enough so that whatever was in it stayed pleasantly warm but not too hot. Kihyun moved closer and peeked inside.

It was oil.

He went white. It surprised him he felt more fury than fear.

The flickering light started to play tricks on him, bringing out shadows of riders and warriors and falling peach trees out of the locked box that was his memory. His head throbbed at the visions. Worn, he sat down on the sheep skins and outstretched his hands towards the quietly crackling fire. His legs started to hurt.

This place could be a luxury for some. Even being owned could be a luxury for some.

For Kihyun, death would be the most luxurious thing on earth, especially if it was quick.

He was left alone for so long that he began to believe the horselord would grant him one more night of solitude. The second the thought crossed his mind, the flap shifted open and the man walked in, crouched. His dark oiled hair glistened in the firelight.

So did his eyes.

Kihyun was mindful of what awaited him if he disrespected the man. Nevertheless, he remained seated where he was. He didn't stand up to greet him. He stared into the fire.

He willed himself not to think about smoke and charred bodies.

It was hard.

More people trailed inside, the same warrior who had brought Kihyun here and a servant – or a slave, like him – dressed in wool.

Shadows wound around Kihyun. It seemed to him in the suddenly crowded yurt that the people's shadows might strangle him with their immaterial hands, so he touched his throat and got up out of panic.

Still, his heart beat in anger.

He wasn't afraid.

Not of what was real.

Tiredly, the horselord shed his clothes and went to the basin to bathe. Water splashed around ruthlessly behind the wooden screen. Kihyun stood with his back to it, growing sick at the man's grunts and sighs.

The now familiar warrior approached him.

“Don't fight much, you two. He got injured a few weeks back,” he told Kihyun in bastardized Valyrian which was spoken all across Slaver's Bay amongst smallfolk. His voice sounded like loose wheels of a rattling cart.

Kihyun didn't acknowledge that he heard the man at all. He merely looked up and pierced the stranger with an unflinching gaze. He took in the warrior's slanted eyes and short braid adorned with bells. The length of his hair signified he'd killed before, but perhaps wasn't very seasoned in the art of war. Kihyun marked that the man's hand kept grazing his hip as if to touch his arakh, a moon-shaped scythe the Dothraki liked to spar with. Except there was no weapon there, seeing that blades and swords and bows were not allowed inside the city, and so the man's hand twitched empty in the air.

“No fight,” repeated the man, this time in jangling High Valyrian. Uncertainty turned him bashful; younger. “Yes?”

Still, Kihyun didn't respond.

They couldn't make him speak. None of the Dothraki understood Myrish and Kihyun could in turn pretend he didn't understand them.

When the horselord appeared from behind the screen, naked but dry, he exchanged a few words with the warrior. Kihyun _truly_ didn't understand them this time around. The only thing he knew about his owner's language was that it had no expression for “thank you.”

The Dothraki just took.

Quietly, the servant moved around to arrange dinner on the low desk near the fireplace. He took the basins and emptied them outside the yurt. Just as quietly, the boy slinked towards the lighted up candles. He checked the temperature of the oil with his little finger and adjusted the height of the bowl before he slipped out of the abode for good. The young warrior followed soon after.

Kihyun was alone with the horselord.

He wondered what it would be like, to kill.

There was nothing to kill the man with, though. Only fire. Unconsciously, Kihyun stepped away from the flames. As he did, the man shifted closer. Kihyun lifted his chin only to be met with his owner's stare.

He was still naked. Instead of bells in his hair, he wore one tiny bell as an earring. Smudges of kohl remained smeared around his eyes even after washing up. Kihyun had used kohl on the way through the desert, too, to protect his sight from the sun.

Kihyun took a better look. He had thought the man had sharper features, with narrow eyes and fierce eyebrows, but he had been wrong. A certain roundness framed his face and his eyes were bigger now that they weren't underlined with a thick layer of charcoal. His nose was prominent and mouth soft.

He couldn't be much older than Kihyun.

It was his body that made Kihyun small and laughable in comparison. But then again, even the tall warrior who had come here earlier looked boyish next to this man's bulk.

Something rustled.

Kihyun's musings dissipated like brash ice. The man was approaching him.

Gods be good, thought Kihyun.

He lifted one arm and pressed his palm against the man's chest to stop him. Strangely, he did.

But then he covered Kihyun's hand with his as if to encourage him. To elicit more touches.

Slowly, he kneaded Kihyun's fingers. He brushed the knuckles and moved on to the slim wrist. He closed his hand around it. Around the tattoo.

It had been easy to forget about the inky mark while on the road.

“What's your name?” the man asked in High Valyrian. He had a distinct accent.

Kihyun didn't speak.

“Mine's Hoseok,” he tried again.

Kihyun didn't speak.

“You don't understand High Valyrian?” Hoseok asked in bastardized Valyrian, his accent disappearing as he slipped into the easier dialect. At the same time, a shade of doubt came over his expression. He parted his lips and closed them.

Kihyun didn't speak.

Seeking a way to communicate, Hoseok covered his hand again, the tips of his fingers overreaching Kihyun's.

It was too warm; and Kihyun tried to flinch away; and Hoseok let go of him, his arm hanging in the air a little lost.

A moment went by during which they did nothing but look at each other.

“Hello,” said Hoseok at last, laboriously, in Pentoshi. “Welcome,” he squeezed out.

His eyebrows sloped upwards as he awaited a response.

Kihyun didn't give him any.

Glancing around, Hoseok noticed the dinner. He motioned to his mouth and to the tray garnished with smoked horse meat and cheese.

Kihyun shook his head.

Puzzled, the horselord gestured with more insistence.

Kihyun shook his head.

“You're not hungry?”

Kihyun stopped himself short before he could shake his head for the third time and disclose that he understood Valyrian after all. Instead, he chose to look owlish and maintained his silence.

In a world without walls, silence was his only defence.

With Hyungwon, it had been different. He was an educated man. Kihyun could converse with him, advise him, steer him. Take him. In a messed up way, Hyungwon had saved him – a deed whose intentions had been impure, but which had given Kihyun a chance to survive nevertheless.

It had been so, so different.

Above all, Hyungwon was a merchant. Not a murderer. He wasn't someone whose people were responsible for the fate of the House of Yoo. Hoseok, on the other hand, was. Kihyun didn't want the Dothraki anywhere near him.

Not now, not ever.

He winced back when Hoseok tried to tug him towards the food. There was strength in Hoseok's touch, too much of it. Wrath surged through Kihyun and he returned the tug, making the rider stumble because he didn't expect it.

Kihyun, for that matter, didn't expect the horselord to chuckle of all things. The little physical power he had left after the travel sent Hoseok forward and he held onto Kihyun's waist to steady himself. He smelled of scented water, horses, and smoke. Kihyun dug an elbow into his broad chest to push him away.

Hoseok hissed. He pressed at his pec to massage it, giving a sheepish smile.

_Don't fight much. He got injured a few weeks back._

Kihyun wondered just how much strength he would have to put into the shove to harm the man. But Hoseok held his wrist first.

“Pain,” he said in High Valyrian. “Do you know that word?”

Did Kihyun know that word?

His mouth curled.

He didn't want to hear a single more sound from the Dothraki. Stepping aside, Kihyun sharply nodded towards the bed. He would give the man what he wanted – what he had paid for, though not in gold; in ghastly reputation. If Kihyun got it over with soon, maybe he could go outside afterwards and breathe again.

Maybe he could wear the man out and strangle him in his sleep. And then die.

How did the Dothraki punish slaves who lay a hand on their masters? Kihyun doubted such death would be merciful.

He could just end it himself. Make the man kill him. Make him do it out of anger, fast.

Hopelessness ignited him.

Pain, he thought, looking at the Dothraki. Do you know that word?

With his lithe body, he forced Hoseok to walk backwards towards the den of furs and pillows. Low candles in bronze bowls stood around it, scattered without any rhyme or reason. The bowl of oil was there, too, the liquid inside it heated up and fragrant and dark-looking in the wanly lit up yurt.

As Hoseok moved backwards with a pull at Kihyun's waist, he let out another chuckle. His cock started to stir. Kihyun saw it swell and stand up.

So he liked a little bit of fight.

A little bit of being pushed around.

Still led by his repulsion rather than reason, Kihyun pressed at the man's shoulders to make him kneel on the furs. Hoseok went willingly. Before Kihyun knew it, his belt was gone, his robes coming undone. Hoseok grazed Kihyun's navel with his mouth. His fingers found the strings of Kihyun's riding breeches and yanked them open. Hungrily, Hoseok kissed his stomach and flaccid cock, all the while trying to get Kihyun out of the breeches.

A quick death.

Usually sharp-witted, Kihyun struggled to come up with something he could possibly do to anger the man beyond reason. Strike him? Would that be enough, or would it just earn him a slap back? Humiliate him? But how, when he was already on his knees in front of a slave, lapping at his limp dick?

Rushed, Hoseok's mouth went lower, leaving kisses down Kihyun's thigh.

That was when everything stopped.

Hoseok pulled back, heavy-lidded. He blinked. Lightly, he ran a single finger over Kihyun's inner thigh. Kihyun didn't have to glance down to know the skin there was bruised and rough from the saddle, bleeding purple like overripe grapes.

He felt Hoseok's firm hand on the back of his knee, forcing him to go down. He resisted for a second or two, but found himself sitting cross-legged in front of Hoseok in the end.

The brute brought him down just like that.

Hoseok turned away, reached into the bowl of oil and cupped the liquid in his palm. With a glimpse at Kihyun, he murmured something in Dothraki. Odd. It was better when he spoke in a language Kihyun could decipher. At least he was able to read the situation if he couldn't control it.

Hoseok began to spread the oil over Kihyun's thighs.

Well. Kihyun didn't need language for that.

There was quite a bit of force in Hoseok's movements and Kihyun set his teeth so he wouldn't hiss out loud, too prideful for that. It disturbed him that the horselord got harder still, his cock springing up. His head hung low in concentration as he kneaded Kihyun's tender flesh, circling it with his thumbs. His hands rose to Kihyun's groin, brushed the junctions between his thighs and cock, and slid back down. Hoseok did it one more time and shied away from going higher again. On his third try, he gripped Kihyun in his palm.

It was slick, the friction enough to wake Kihyun up. He could sense himself harden under the touch.

Grudging a groan, he wondered what was even the point in getting a slave aroused.

“ _Ma davra_...” murmured Hoseok before he bent down to kiss the tip, wetly, his lips open.

Kihyun breathed evenly, if louder than usual. He gazed down at the man: his rippling back, his feet tucked under him. This wasn't real. The brother of the great khal wasn't about to please _him_.

He lost control for a split second and laughed.

Hoseok peeked up. He grinned, but there was something dark about it.

The grimace reminded Kihyun the Dothraki was a killer. Instead of letting the man take him into his mouth, Kihyun grabbed him by the hair and held him in place.

Hoseok hoisted himself up on his hands. His veins stood out almost blackish, shadows dipping over them.

“ _Zoqwa_?” he muttered with a small smile as he brought his face to Kihyun's.

The next moment, he went for a kiss. _Zoqwa_. Kihyun had to remember that.

He evaded Hoseok's mouth. The horselord didn't mind. He began to lave at Kihyun's neck, brushing the delicate curve with the tip of his nose. He murmured some more, his guttural voice seeping warm into Kihyun's skin, streaming alive in his veins.

Kihyun yanked at his hair to get him off, but it only roused Hoseok further. It brought him closer. Working Kihyun's cock to its full size, Hoseok got up on his knees and tried to hover above the smaller man.

Again Kihyun yanked at him.

He had wanted it to be over, but the closer he got to being used, the more he dreaded it. He should just spit in that man's face. Choke him with his own gold medallion belt.

Chest constricting, Kihyun looked at Hoseok's throat, so thick he'd be barely able to wrap his hands around it.

Hoseok misunderstood him. He buried his fingers in Kihyun's hair so they were holding each other.

“ _Zoqwa_ ,” Hoseok demanded again with a lift of the chin.

A man could be beaten down in many ways. One of them was being forced to worship someone who had destroyed him.

He kissed Hoseok's neck with teeth rather than tongue. The warmth and scent of it overpowered him at once, both as strong as the man himself. Herbs. Horses. Smoke. Groaning, Hoseok tilted his head and then rolled over so Kihyun could bite at the nape of his neck.

Kihyun seethed – sank his teeth into the man's shoulder – felt his nostrils quiver with frustration. However he tried to punish Hoseok, it would never be enough.

It would never be good.

His lashes damp, Kihyun let his mouth fall open, pausing in between bites.

It took him a minute to realize Hoseok was lying on his belly, waiting. He peered at Kihyun over his shoulder, eyelids heavy. His mouth looked like it'd been kissed, but it hadn't. Low and rich, he mumbled something.

Kihyun didn't understand a word of it. But it spoke volumes when Hoseok adjusted his position so his legs were further apart, one bent at the knee.

They glanced at each other.

Tentatively, Kihyun laid his palm on Hoseok's ass, almost at the hip. He splayed his fingers briefly only to grip tighter the next moment.

Another murmur.

With two wet fingertips, Hoseok put out a few candles that stood the closest to the bed. His body became only a lighted up curve in the dark; a gold-dipped silhouette.

Smoke rose from the snuffed out candles and stung in Kihyun's nose. He blinked in the sudden blackness.

He heard his heart race, as furious as hooves.

He could still hold his head high.

Hoseok hadn't bought Kihyun to fuck him. Hoseok had bought him to be fucked.

Kihyun spread his ass and poured oil over it. Too repulsed to touch Hoseok inside, he grabbed at the flesh first and smeared the warmed up lubricant all over his hole and right under it. He pushed at the sensitive spot that used to drive the otherwise lethargic Hyungwon to moans.

The Dothraki reacted the same way. Except he _talked_.

Talked and talked and talked, his words incomprehensible to Kihyun.

He only got quiet when Kihyun pressed his hips against him, the tip of his cock nudging Hoseok's asshole open. With an even exhale, he sank in. The tight rim resisted him and Kihyun thought it would please him – vindicate him, even – but it didn't.

“Pain?” he whispered in High Valyrian.

Hoseok whipped around to face him. He shook his head.

Lying down deeper, Kihyun glided into him bit by bit. He watched Hoseok's mouth twitch and the muscles in his arms quiver. When Kihyun was fully inside, Hoseok arched. He grabbed Kihyun by the nape of his neck and forced his head down to be kissed.

Like before, Kihyun avoided his mouth at all costs. He snapped his hips forward and the Dothraki gave a gasp, the bell in his ear tinkling.

It tinkled with each thrust.

Kihyun stared at the bell. It swayed softly no matter how quick the tempo got, how mad.

“Pain?” he repeated without thinking.

“No,” Hoseok rasped back. “ _Alikh._ Oh...”

Hoseok was still holding him down, so Kihyun buried his face in the crook of his neck. It was slick inside him. His cock hurt, wrapped so good it wrangled choked sounds out of him. Hoseok's unfamiliar scent grew more distinct as they both began to break a sweat.

His hip bones slapped against Hoseok's ass. It was hard from horse riding and it jiggled lightly with each thrust and squeeze. His bell earring jingled and Hoseok moaned, the sound throaty.

“You shouldn't be fucking liking this,” Kihyun said; to whom, he didn't know.

“ _Alikh_ ,” was all Hoseok said back.

Kihyun snaked his arms under Hoseok's and grasped his shoulders like this, from below.

He drove in, a deep-seated wrath breaking him. He fell apart. His vision blurred. He shut his eyes.

This should have never happened.

None of it.

Hoseok came untouched under him from the sheer roughness of it all. Kihyun kept going, but not for long. He couldn't last when Hoseok's hole clenched around him. He spent himself with a dry sob.

He slipped out the second he was done. He took a look at Hoseok's cum-stained thighs, trembled out a breath, and rolled off. He ended up on his back, his chest falling. Everything around him was falling, too.

He didn't feel any less used.

He felt filthy.

Hoseok, for that matter, was blissed out. He shifted onto his back as well, rubbed at his pecs absently and chuckled. He looked and acted heavy. His voice was hoarse when he spoke up and it probably amused him, seeing he kept giving breathy laughs.

Glancing at him, Kihyun grew unreadable. He tried to, anyway. Hoseok grinned, so dark again, so bold. It was like he didn't just get fucked to pieces by a slave half his size.

Kihyun realized none of it mattered. His rage, his grief. It was of no consequence to this man, who seemed to have been put on this earth only to fight and fuck and ruin whatever which stood in his path. He roamed the same world as Kihyun to burn cities and bury people and to be rewarded for it with a good life.

Kihyun swallowed, but there was nothing in his mouth really, just a bitter tang.

Shaking, he patted around for his clothes. He soon realized he was too soiled to put on the expensive Myrish robe, so he settled for covering himself with a fur. He draped it over his body protectively. His breath was becoming calm again, guarded.

Hoseok was still massaging his chest. His hand stilled for a moment when their eyes met.

“Pain,” he said sheepishly, patting the spot Kihyun had shoved at before.

But you lived to feel it, thought Kihyun.

The person you killed would gladly trade places with you, he thought right after.

Curtly, he nodded towards Hoseok's lower body.

“Pain?”

“ _Vo_ ,” said Hoseok in Dothraki. “No,” he corrected himself in Valyrian.

Then he grinned at his own failed attempts to communicate, a little exasperated, when it dawned on him Kihyun didn't understand him either way. So he simply shook his head.

“Pain?” he asked back, palming Kihyun's bruised thigh gently.

Kihyun flinched, but not because it hurt. He shook his head “no.”

Satisfied, Hoseok propped himself up on one elbow. He looked Kihyun up and down.

He patted himself.

“Hoseok,” he said, expectant. Lightly, he traced Kihyun's rib cage with a finger.

Kihyun didn't say anything.

Hoseok repeated the whole ordeal, this time placing a finger exactly in the middle of Kihyun's chest to make him know he was waiting.

He considered staying mute. At this point, though, he was too tired.

“Kihyun.”

“Kihyun,” Hoseok echoed, his voice breaking over the soft syllables. _“Naqis hrazef anni_...” he murmured as he stroked Kihyun's sides and stomach. He ran an appreciative hand over his cock and stopped above the thighs.

It was a stark realization that Kihyun had forgone some of his control by trying to get it; that by pretending not to know Valyrian, he'd lost contact with the outer world and had no way of knowing what would happen to him.

He fell asleep a little while after, wasted.

 

A feast was held the following day to celebrate the khal's return.

Tents and wooden platforms were raised up all around the grand marketplace, offering a haven from the blistering sun, though the masses mostly remained outside – jostling, play-fighting, and fighting for real. Only the khal and his bloodriders, Hoseok and his property included, feasted in the shade.

The khal was a Titan in flesh, with a weather-beaten but handsome face. His braid lay thick on his back, reaching down to his thighs. Whenever the sun shone on him, he shone right back at it, glistening with oil and sweat. He reminded Kihyun of brass and gold statues of Myrish water deities. The khal's wife sat by his side, her braid just as long and rich with bells. She had a baby at her breast and a whip at her hip.

Kihyun was a bundle of nerves in his seat beside Hoseok. He had no idea know it was allowed for a whore to be placed so close to the khal, especially during an event like this one when the clan gathered to pay homage to their chief. But here Kihyun was, wrapped up in a garment that must have cost more than the ones he had worn in Hyungwon's house, eating Dothraki food and drinking their traditional fermented mare's milk.

He'd rather wear wool and chew on bread in Myr.

It was hot, the stone-and-red-sand marketplace quivering in sunlight. The Dothraki who raged and danced all around the low platforms obviously weren't fazed by the weather. There were so many of them that Kihyun never paused to relax.

Hoseok, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. He sang and smiled and called a hearty “ _Alikh_!” to ask for more food whenever he emptied his plate. He kept trying to touch Kihyun and feed him meat and figs, no matter how many times the slighter man pressed his lips together in refusal. When Hoseok wouldn't stop, Kihyun resorted to feeding _him_ instead, as was his duty as a servant. It busied him, which was good.

It also kept Hoseok off him, which was even better.

Streams of people were coming to the shaded spot where the khal celebrated with his bloodriders in an endless tide. Every single one of the guests brought a gift: sturdy chests and delicate glass, jewels and salt, intricately embroidered arrow bags. Kihyun noticed that a good half of these tributes went to Hoseok.

The crowd was loud.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kihyun saw a couple go from a brawl to intense love-making, right there in front of the khal and everyone else.

Kihyun found out that what he considered rough wasn't really rough by Dothraki standards. He blushed darkly, more out of distaste than embarrassment. He turned towards Hoseok, who'd become his only anchor here. Kihyun recognized only one more person apart from his master amongst the sea of unfamiliar faces, the warrior from yesterday; but the man sat too far.

Now Kihyun understood why the warrior had felt the need to tell him not to grapple with Hoseok before sex. It was the custom here.

Sweeter dishes were brought as the sun began to set – blood pies and porridge with honey and dates – and then spicy dishes when the sky darkened. The air hummed, and Kihyun's head grew hot from all that fermented milk, and more sparring couples drew blood as they attempted to overpower the other.

Hoseok stood up. He pulled Kihyun with him. Kihyun went, partly because he wanted to be gone and partly because it wouldn't be wise to disrespect the warrior in public. He thought they were going back to the yurt, but Hoseok led him to his war horse instead. It was a tall beast, black but sweet-eyed.

Out of the blue, Hoseok lifted him on the horse's back. Kihyun didn't make a sound, but that was only because of his alcoholic stupor.

Hoseok gazed up and laid a light peck on Kihyun's thigh, the upper part that didn't sting from riding. Then he vaulted into the saddle in front of Kihyun and took the reins.

Kihyun had barely enough time to clutch Hoseok's waist and the horse was already running.

The breeze on his face did little to cool him down. He sat pressed against Hoseok, absorbing the warmth of his body. His legs didn't ache just yet, but he assumed they would at the end of the ride. He had no other option but to squeeze them together so he wouldn't fall off the horse, which charged ahead, its tempo turning the land wavy. Mountains stood dark on the horizon, their ridges coloured ruby.

Kihyun swayed from side to side. He grasped at Hoseok tighter, his hands moving around to find the best place to hold on. He settled for the belt, seeing that Hoseok's torso was as good as bare. The moment Kihyun touched the belt, though, the massive medallions the thing was made of pinched his fingers. He dropped his hands lower, fisting the fabric of Hoseok's breeches.

The stallion slowed down. Hoseok steered him one-handed while he took Kihyun's wrist and led him lower still.

His breeches were bulged.

He was hard, or getting there.

Kihyun hated this. The horizon turned hazy.

Even here in this waste, the sun dripped down in the shade of blood oranges, just like in Pentos. He thought of the sea and the villa and Huyngwon's low reading voice. Kihyun couldn't recall his own home in his current state as the plains and warped little trees rushed past; and all the better. He had nothing to go back to. No one.

Except his own self.

His hand trapped under Hoseok's hand, Kihyun rubbed his hardening cock over the leather.

He'd gotten used to pleasuring men when it gave him no pleasure in return, but he'd certainly never done it on horseback. He clung to Hoseok for his dear life. The world was afloat. Kihyun let his forehead rest against Hoseok's broad back while he slid under the breeches and touched him.

Hoseok moaned out something. His tone was so colourful that Kihyun concluded it must have been a curse. They both shifted in the saddle as well as they could. Digging his nails into Hoseok's side, Kihyun stroked him at a quick pace. He ran a thumb over the tip and felt that it was damp.

He didn't smell smoke on Hoseok's skin tonight, probably because there hadn't been any fires burning too close to their seats at the feast.

Unbothered beneath the couple, the stallion ran on. Hoseok didn't need to lead the way; the horse seemed to know where to go.

Kihyun breathed in deeply. He gripped Hoseok tighter; everywhere.

Hoseok pulled at the reins. The horse roared and stood on its hind legs. It was brief – a billow of the mighty back, a roll of the muscles – and the animal calmed down enough to stand again and walk forward. Wave, wave, wave. Crash, crash, crash. In this wasteland, Kihyun was a ship – was shipwrecked – drowning.

They gradually slowed down and halted. Hoseok dismounted, tied the horse to a dried up acacia tree and returned to Kihyun. He took him by the waist and picked him up. In the air – on the ground – Hoseok held him. Kihyun found himself stuck between the horse and the man, pressed from both sides. He leaned back, hoping the horse wouldn't step aside.

Alpenglow tinted Hoseok dark – but blush – but dark. The air stood sickly hot between them. Kihyun had little time to breathe, anyway, because Hoseok kissed him.

He shouldn't have drank all that airag.

A Myrishman through and through, Kihyun was used to rich reds and sweet pear brandy.

Not this. Never this.

Hoseok's tongue reminded him of the tangy taste of the Dothraki alcohol as it pushed into him. Kihyun opened up. It wasn't like he had a choice.

There were two things he knew about the Dothraki way of kissing.

First, they called it _zoqwa_.

Second, they kissed like it wasn't just a matter of lips and tongues, but the whole body.

Hoseok was all over him, against him, inside him. Hands on him, hips against his hips, and Kihyun thought of the sea again, and how he used to call the white-tipped crests of waves _white horses_ , and the earth swung under him.

It all slipped from his grasp. So he grasped Hoseok.

Now it was Hoseok tasting the alcohol on Kihyun's tongue.

There were two things Kihyun could say about the Myrish way of kissing.

First, they called it _polibek_.

Second, they kissed like they wanted to lock a piece of their self into the other person.

Hoseok touched him up and down, tousling Kihyun's hair before opening his robes. Then he touched him up and down again. Belts fell on the sand. Breeches followed. Hoseok clasped something in his palm, a vial, and when he tugged at Kihyun to get him going, the cut glass pressed cool against his elbow.

They stumbled forward. The only thing Kihyun wore was the tattoo on his wrist. Hoseok had his bell earring. That was all.

Sand ran over Kihyun's toes, scorching the soles of his feet whenever he stood in one place for too long. He had no idea where they were going. He was aimless. At one with the breeze which brought more swelter than relief. He drifted, pushing Hoseok on, wading through the red sands and dust.

But he only felt those things. He didn't see.

When he tried to look, all he saw was the quiver of Hoseok's eyelashes.

He gave himself over to the black that came with closing one's eyes; the fleshy kind of darkness that threatened to become too light to bear if he stopped focusing on it. He'd rather focus on darkness than on Hoseok. It was better, wasn't it, if Kihyun didn't have to see him. He just had to learn Hoseok's shape with his roaming hands. Memorize the scent of his lips before and after the kiss. Take in the scorch of his shoulders. _God_ , it was like the sun itself sat on his shoulders and waited to seep into Kihyun's touch.

Hoseok murmured into his mouth. Kihyun didn't hear him, but he understood that they'd reached their destination because Hoseok stopped walking. Kihyun crashed into him. He stopped too and sank his feet firmly to the soil beneath.

Soil.

Kihyun dazedly opened his eyes to look down. Dark damp dirt peeked in between his toes. He saw no water, really, no oasis, but a cool shade clung to him the way dew would cling to leaves after rain.

This was where Hoseok wanted to be fucked.

Kihyun held the back of his neck. He led Hoseok down. Here everything was fluid; the air, the cold sticking to his skin, even Kihyun's strength. It was so easy to move. Hoseok sank to his knees, and then to his hands.

Kihyun went after him. He kneeled behind Hoseok.

The little bell jangled weaker, as if frozen or afraid to break the silence.

Shifting, Hoseok handed him the vial. He soiled himself as he did so, smearing dirt over his knees and palms.

Kihyun opened the bottle and poured oil where Hoseok wanted him. It wasn't warmed up this time and he heard a hiss – but the sound sliced the dusk pleased.

He let the vial drop. But before he did, he pulled at Hoseok's arm, had him lift it up, wiped his fingers clean and then soaked them slick.

“Finger yourself,” whispered Kihyun, breath bated, and Hoseok understood although the order was as good as wordless for him.

Hoseok worked himself open, beginning and ending with two fingers like it was a habit; and it probably was. It made sense now, that Kihyun had glided inside him so well the day before. Well but tight.

Crouching, he wedged himself between Hoseok's thighs and dragged him lower. The man listened, sinking down on his elbows while his ass stayed higher up to settle into Kihyun's lap.

He didn't even mean for Hoseok to take him in, not right away, not in one push, but he did, wetly, and Kihyun was drunk, so drunk. Hoseok sucked his cock in, his body low above the ground and muscles strung.

Kihyun almost slid out and thrust back, but then he remembered.

“Pain?”

Facedown, Hoseok shook his head “no.”

Kihyun fucked him like he'd never fucked anyone. He was rougher than yesterday – as rough as those Dothraki during the feast – or perhaps not, perhaps he was still too soft, the airag he had poured down his throat melting his veins and slowing him down – but Hoseok liked it. He choked on his own moans until he got quiet, the kind of quiet when it was too good to speak. The kind of quiet when movements were louder than voices.

Everything glistened with oil. Shimmered. Hoseok arched. Kihyun snapped into him, watching as Hoseok's rim stretched with each thrust.

“ _Alikh_ ,” Hoseok begged, drowning the sound in the crook of his elbow where he buried his face.

More.

Kihyun splayed Hoseok's thighs with his thighs; laid him belly down to lie on top of him; grabbed Hoseok's hands with his hands and locked their fingers. His mouth fell open, Hoseok's grip causing him a little too much pain. Kihyun bore with it. His fingers went white. His cock went deeper.

Hoseok did moan out loud then.

“ _Sekke_ ,” he said, his voice breaking like a fine vase. He repeated, and repeated, and repeated it, and he shook as he came.

That was when Kihyun realized he'd gotten there, too, his seed already staining Hoseok inside and out and leaking down his thighs. It dripped on the ground. Kihyun stared. Pleasure hit him a second later, all the more powerful, sweet in his bones.

He collapsed.

He smelled the soil and something rich, more musky. Sweat. Salt.

A man.

Kihyun swam. In liquid gold. In tar. Motion; full stop. Motion again.

Not at all like the sea. Sea-sick.

He was in the darkness again. But he felt. He felt as Hoseok encircled his wrist. The pad of his thumb brushed the tattoo there. The ink ran deep, waving in soft lines and creating a chain to remind Kihyun he was not free.

_It will please your new master._

He cried then, but only a little.

Strangers shouldn't see him cry.

 

The first month in Vaes Dothrak wasn't the worst.

Kihyun grew accustomed to the heavy Dothraki cuisine rather quickly. He had to be the only coastal dweller who disliked fish, so the richly seasoned meats and spicy dishes of the horselords weren't that much of a novelty to him. Intestines and dried horse meat were worse, but Kihyun ate everything up since nothing was allowed to go to waste. The Dothraki were desert people, unused to farming and reliant on trade and livestock – mostly other tribes' livestock. When they slaughtered an animal, they were sure to make use of every last bit of it.

On those rare occasions that tender lamb meat was served, Hoseok had it brought into their yurt. There, Hoseok sprawled in front of Kihyun and opened his mouth like a fish to be fed, speaking silence. Silence was all they spoke. It'd become their language. It was readable at times.

But not always.

The longer Kihyun kept quiet, the harder it was to speak at all; so he didn't. Nobody cared for a talking slave, anyway. So he saved his voice to pray when he was alone and to moan when he wasn't. Little grunts and gasps during sex had become the only sounds Hoseok could get out of him; ever.

Hoseok never ceased trying to find a common tongue for them, whether he painted pictures into sand or gesticulated wildly. He did everything to get through to Kihyun. In moments like those, Kihyun sat owlishly and focused on _missing_ Hoseok's point. He didn't care that Hoseok's war horse was named after one of the mountain peaks that lay eastern of the city. He didn't care that the khal had two children. He didn't care that _hatif_ meant _face_ and _sekke_ meant the person who uttered it was too full or tired – to eat, to fight, to fuck.

He didn't care to live this life.

The young warrior who accompanied Hoseok everywhere he went tried to talk to Kihyun every now and then as well, and while Kihyun considered him dense for those attempts at first, it dawned on him the man may be waiting for him to slip and respond. Kihyun never did. Still, Jooheon's eyes followed him, as did the jangle of his voice whenever he spoke in High Valyrian.

Sometimes Kihyun found himself leaning in to listen. He drank up the brooklet of Jooheon's words only to try to forget them later. It was hard, on his loneliest days, to deny himself that shred of familiarity the shared language offered him.

On his loneliest nights, Kihyun had nothing. He had to warm Hoseok's bed. Then he had to stay in it. It wasn't enough for the man to be taken; Kihyun had to bathe him, feed him, hold him. He had to look like it didn't claw at his throat from the inside, handling the killer like he was someone precious to him.

Kihyun had it even worse than Hoseok's horse. The beast could be alone sometimes.

This beast, Kihyun thought as he looked at Hoseok, always needed company, so company Kihyun kept him. In their stuffy yurt. During dinners and feasts. On walks through the market and rides through the wide wide plains. In meetings. Kihyun sat beside him, walked beside him, drank milk tea with him from the same cup.

He was an accessory. Hoseok proudly introduced him as his _mahrazh_ , making Kihyun wonder why such a rich, smooth-running word stood for _slave_ and not something else, something that would be as unbound as the word itself.

In bed, Hoseok whispered to him, usually when they were done. _Naqis hrazef anni_. Kihyun would rather stay oblivious to the meaning of that one phrase. It couldn't be anything he'd like to hear. Men tended to say filth to him after sex, _aren't you a lovely little thing, like a girl, so fuckable._

How much more horrible it would be if he truly was a woman was something Kihyun didn't want to know.

He just knew Hoseok wanted him; daily, nightly, before they finished bathing, before they even left the open marketplace where the clan assembled at dusk to eat under strings of lit up lanterns.

Once or twice, Kihyun took him first. It was less because he would desire it and more because Hoseok was slow to initiate, and Kihyun was tired, and he grew restless awaiting the worst, so he got it over it and fell asleep right after.

If there was one thing Kihyun could look at from the bright side, it was that belonging to the great khal's brother meant he was off limits for anyone else. The walks he took through the city couldn't differ from the idle strolls through Pentoshi streets and colonnades any more. Nobody touched him here. Nobody talked to him unless in a respectful tone, offering goods and fruit. Hoseok's presence served as a shield between Kihyun and the crowd.

But there was no shielding Kihyun from Hoseok. No way at all – save for the silence that walled Kihyun in.

Still, the first month truly wasn't the worst.

The worst came later when he caught himself recognizing Dothraki words and eating their food with bare hands instead of cutlery. It came with forlorn looks outside the borderless city on those evenings that Kihyun stood by the gates and watched the sun set and still dreamt of the Summer Sea, but no longer expected to see it shimmer in the distance. It came with wearing Myrish lace and silk belts instead of leather and bronze and feeling like an outsider for it.

Mornings purified him. On some days, Kihyun slipped out of the yurt when it was still chilly outside, draped in furs. He did it to be without Hoseok. Clouds shifted and crumbled above the mountains and pyramids, leaking red and changing to washed out white.

With white skies came Hoseok, as if summoned by sunlight. Yawning, he squeezed himself under the furs Kihyun wore, handed him a cup of tea and wrapped his warmed up fingers around his hip bones.

Sometimes, Hoseok served _him_.

He helped Kihyun to the saddle and brought him sweetened airag and translated for him as well as he could with only his body to rely on. He bought lovely things Kihyun never used. And for all Hoseok gifted him, he expected things in return that no slave could give.

A week or two into knowing each other, Hoseok had found a map that covered the ports of the whole Slaver's Bay. He had pushed the map across the desk and asked and insisted until Kihyun had grown weary of it and touched the place he came from with his fingertip.

“Myr?” Hoseok had hummed in Dothraki.

So now Kihyun knew the sound of his home on its destroyer's lips.

With everything new he learned, he lost something else. His knowledge of the strange Dothraki ways was slowly moulding him into a stranger, too. A realization as heavy as a shroud settled into his bones that instead of strengthening his ties to his homeland, all the longing and ache only severed them. Thinking of places he would never visit again brought him further apart from them – the cliffs, the seashore, the orchards. He wasn't happy away from home and he wasn't happy thinking about home and he wasn't happy knowing that this was his home now.

Happy was a strong word, though. It'd become foreign to him, as had everything else. Happiness had no price because he couldn't pay for it. It had no value – because he couldn't own it.

Kihyun supposed happiness was that he no longer wanted to die buried in the dark sands of the Dothraki Sea.

His days flew past. One like another; none like another.

The routine he'd established wasn't a routine per se – the Dothraki were nomads with not a single calm drop of blood to let them rest for too long. They changed and moved and roared constantly, the same as the desert they lived in. There was always something happening in the city. When the weather favoured them, the Dothraki raced on their horses for fun and scoured smaller settlements for crop and stock and held matches in fighting pits.

Kihyun never participated in any of it, but he was expected to cheer on his master whenever Hoseok spurred his charger on in a race or when he entered the fighting pit. Hidden in shade, he watched Hoseok win. Kihyun clapped then – lukewarm – proud in the eyes of others.

During two more months in Vaes Dothrak, Kihyun discovered Hoseok didn't really compete unless his friends encouraged him.

He had quite a few. And of course he did. He was strong – a quality valued above anything amongst the horselords. He was the brother of their leader. He could break horses and break bones. Whether he sparred or smiled, his whole heart was in it. And yet he was a man without a braid and bells. A warrior without his pride.

Kihyun found out why during his fourth month in the land of the Dothraki.

The day began as any other day. Chilly, and then suddenly scorching. Kihyun brushed and oiled Hoseok's hair before they set off for the pit, combing the thick strands away from his forehead. His hair was longer now than when Kihyun had first met him.

But not for long.

The fighting pit stood in the sun overripe with people and smells. Dusted with a fine layer of brick red sand, the stone floor absorbed the heat of the late morning. Warriors with sunburnt shoulders battled against each other, armed with whips and blunt weapons that _shouldn't_ actually kill and only occasionally did.

The scene in front of Kihyun was nothing like those few tournaments he had seen in Myr as a boy. It was a melee. Everyone fought everyone. Only the good ones remained standing through the noon and no one but the strongest lasted until the evening.

Hoseok outlasted the others. He looked fierce when he fought, all swollen veins and flared nostrils. With his head hung low and eyes outlined with kohl, he stared the last opponent down, and he was so dark again, so manly, that Kihyun wouldn't be worried about him had he cared enough. Jooheon sat next to Kihyun strung up, gazing down into the arena. He brushed his hip every now and then out of habit, searching for the scythe that wasn't there. It was obvious Jooheon would rather be down there with his friend.

Finally, Hoseok struck the remaining rival down. The gallery, already loud, erupted. Hoseok held his arms up. He was loved.

Sunlight ran down the pale curve of his armpit and rib cage. He turned to wave at the khal.

All the while, Kihyun dutifully clapped, his hands cold despite the swelter of the day.

He heard Hoseok call to his brother, probably in a demand to be praised.

“Oh, no,” uttered Jooheon in Valyrian, fixed on Hoseok. “Not again.”

Kihyun's eyes swiveled in Jooheon's direction although he sat otherwise unmoved. He wondered whether it was another one of Jooheon's attempts to get a reaction out of him, but the young warrior wasn't looking at Kihyun. He was looking at Hoseok.

The khal stood up and called back.

Hoseok shouted again, an easy grin on his lips.

The khal smiled. He said something in a lower but more serious tone. The gallery laughed. A group of stray onlookers who wandered around the rim of the pit and pushed each other to see better stilled. The match had already been won, but for some reason the onlookers were getting riled up all anew. Some spilled their drinks, some began to scuffle. Kihyun realized they were placing more bets.

Leaning forward, Jooheon groaned.

“He's really going to end up bald,” Jooheon whined as he closely watched what was going on between the two brothers.

Kihyun glanced at him fully, if briefly. He returned his gaze to Hoseok.

The man couldn't have just done what Kihyun thought he'd done.

He couldn't have just challenged the khal.

Kihyun leaned forward too.

Silent, the khal walked down the stairs and into the pit. A servants handed him a whip and a shield. He only took the former. Dressed in gold and leather, the man appeared as stern as a rock that had sunken many ships and thousands of men already.

And he had. Only ashore.

The tender spot between Kihyun's eyebrows folded. A worried wrinkle appeared there and cut deep. As he bent forward even further, he moved away from the shade. Warmth flooded the nape of his neck, a golden strip falling over it. It was unpleasant. He observed as the two horselords circled each other, their weapons readied. Neither of them talked anymore, not even to taunt the other.

The men were brothers. Bloodriders.

This was all play-fighting. People died, but there was never the intention to kill.

The khal's name held a definite softness to it that Hoseok's name didn't – Hyunwoo, a lovely hum which made Kihyun less apprehensive in the leader's presence. Kihyun called for that softness now.

A crack of whips split the silence.

 


	2. Silence

Hoseok sat small on the furs, firelight dancing over the stretch of his back. A welt ran swelled up and sore to the touch across his spine, only one because the khal had mostly used his hands to wrestle Hoseok down, and a bruised glow had already begun to spread around it. The area reddened even darker as Kihyun smeared ointment over it, the liquid pulpy with bits of aloe and shredded mint leaves. The welt looked all the more gruesome on Hoseok's pale back. His skin had split in several places and Kihyun was sure it had to hurt when he spread the salve over it.

Exhaling through his nose, Kihyun put the jar down. The air smelled minty. Just breathing in stung.

He looked at the wound critically.

_He got brave again_ , had been the last thing Jooheon had said in Valyrian before slipping into the easy bark of his people. He had obviously referred to Hoseok.

Was this a custom of sorts amongst the two brothers? To challenge one another even though Hoseok could never win?

Because if he had ever won, he would have been the khal now.

Kihyun knew some things about Hoseok. Things the man himself had told him, or had tried to tell him. But Kihyun also knew some things he'd noticed by himself.

One, Hoseok wasn't greedy for power. Not in the whispery darkness of their yurt; not outside of it. He didn't rule. Rather than that, he commanded awe with his built and hearty laughter. He possessed inhuman strength and was gifted with talents the Dothraki generally respected and worshipped. Hoseok was everyone's favourite. His bloodline may have been a factor in how well he was treated amongst the warriors despite wearing his hair short – and despite sleeping with men, Kihyun added for himself. But in spite of his popularity, Hoseok never aimed higher than where he already was.

Two, Hoseok loved his brother. There were many things Hoseok loved. Riding during the highest peak of the day and coming back from the desert sun-drenched and sweaty no sooner than when the first stars began to appear in the ink of the sky. Painting maps and carving bows, although he couldn't use the latter inside the city. Putting pretty bracelets on Kihyun, right over his tattoo. Being fucked. Having his cock worshipped, which Kihyun did with his mouth. In all of this, Hoseok was a regular man. A silly man, even. But he was not ordinary in his love for the khal. Hoseok revered his brother the way mortals revere deities. Whatever was leading him to challenge Hyunwoo over and over, it wasn't malicious.

Three, Kihyun thought the brothers might be tied in physical power. Hoseok _was_ a fierce fighter once he put his soul into it, and there was no way Kihyun would ever unsee how easily he brought other men down. Hoseok _soared_ when he stood victorious.

And yet he had lost – willingly.

Kihyun recalled the look in Hoseok's eyes after he had defeated the last standing opponent. The sharp, upturned cut of the corners of his mouth which were usually soft. The stare. The controlled but heavy breathing expanding his chest.

That Hoseok, however, the one from the fighting pit this afternoon, was as far as possible from the Hoseok who was sitting in front of him now. A small scowl soured Kihyun's features.

They were the same Hoseok, he reminded himself. It wasn't wise to separate the man from the murderer.

Kihyun got up and went to wash his hands. His skin felt taut because of the mint in the salve. Back by the fire, Kihyun took a piece of paper. He pondered as he let the tip of a brush dip into ink. _Dried Myrish fire_ , he wrote in his mother tongue. He let the ink dry and fade. He gave the paper to Hoseok. There was a slim chance of finding a merchant from Myr at the Dothraki market, much less a merchant who sold medical plants. It was worth trying, though. Myrish fire would heal Hoseok faster than this pulpy mess which somehow still stung on Kihyun's fingers.

Hoseok wanted to be held that night, smiling a little shyly at today's defeat. Kihyun had no idea what to do with him. Every position they tried ended up being too uncomfortable for Hoseok even though he put on a brave front. It was only one wound – but Kihyun knew how bad it was to stand at the end of a whip.

Still scowling, Kihyun settled down on his back and let Hoseok lie on top of him. He stroked the man's sides in slow motions.

Hoseok was unnaturally quiet, for which Kihyun had no complaints. It looked like it was going to be his first night spent alone in his body, his body _his_ , not shared with Hoseok.

But it was odd.

Losing in front of the whole khalasar hadn't seemed to bother the warrior earlier. He had obediently hung his head low so Hyunwoo could cut his hair. He had even laughed at the tender but warning kiss the khal had pressed on his forehead.

Out there, Hoseok had been himself. The black spark had been there in his eyes when he had walked out of the pit to celebrate.

It wasn't alight now.

Hoseok lifted his head a little to look at him. Kihyun looked back blankly. _Don't touch me today_ , he willed the man without words. _Don't make me touch you. Don't make it worse._

Hoseok dropped his gaze and so did Kihyun. Their cheeks brushed while Hoseok searched for a better spot where to settle. Kihyun was all bones, delicate but sharp, all in all not a pleasant surface to sleep on. That didn't deter either of them.

Hoseok's wound blazed the next morning. It stood out on his back like an open lip, just as wet. He moved slower.

Kihyun sent him to wash up and then spread more salve over the welt. Dark, it snaked where Hoseok usually tied his vest harness. Kihyun dressed the wound and had Hoseok wear something freer and lighter that day, a plain tunic in which he strolled around even broader than usual. Kihyun didn't know how Hoseok managed to take up so much space without his muscles openly bulging out, but somehow he did.

By dusk, the khal and his bloodriders held a meeting in the greatest of the stepped pyramids which towered in Vaes Dothrak. The building stood lighted up from the inside out. The deeper the night got and the longer the horselords talked, the more golden the pyramid shone above the city. Kihyun was present, as was his duty. He sat by Hoseok, listening to the grunts and strangely harmonious guffaws of the Dothraki. His thoughts ran elsewhere. He'd become good at functioning while his mind was absent. It was all a matter of habit. Whenever Hoseok spoke up, Kihyun turned his head to the side to show he knew that his owner had something important to say. Anything Hoseok jotted down, Kihyun fanned with a piece of paper so the ink would dry faster. His life was Hoseok's life. He had nothing else to live for; nothing else to do.

The meeting went on unusually long.

Kihyun deduced rather than understood that the khasalar was about to set out again. The men have been in one place for too long and were growing restless; bloodthirsty. It was in their nature to roam and ride and take. Kihyun welcomed their departure. When it would come, he didn't know. Whether he'd be needed on the way to keep Hoseok's bed warm, he didn't wish to know.

If Hoseok left without him, it would mean at least two months of solitude.

Two blissful months. Stars be good, Kihyun thought.

He actually looked up. He saw no stars because the pyramid lay under a molten layer of light. Only blackness.

The counsel didn't end until midnight. The khal gave a mighty nod and his warriors and advisors alike got up and went to eat under the starless sky.

Except it wasn't starless anymore. Once they walked out of the building, a dome of silver dust opened above them. Kihyun once more glanced upwards. He stood rooted for a second or two. The view reminded him of the sea at night and of silvery glimmers crystalizing on waves.

He sensed Hoseok stop beside him and he snapped out of his haze. He assumed his vacant expression and started to walk. Hoseok did the same.

They joined the late feast. Kihyun wasn't surprised to see children still up, playing with their wooden horses and running around fires with dirty feet and faces, their laughter lovely. Hyunwoo's older daughter was there, too, and she scurried towards Hoseok the moment she saw him in the crowd. She flashed past Kihyun.

Hoseok lifted the child up. She could just as easily be a feather or a tiny bird. Laughing, Hoseok spun her in the air and she shrieked a happy yell. Her bells tinkled.

With a peck and a smile, Hoseok put the girl down. But that didn't sit well with the little khaleesi in the making. She circled Hoseok, a determined frown on her face. She got behind him and jumped.

Kihyun thought of the welt. He missed a step. Hoseok's hiss quickly turned to a chuckle and he said something to the child. The girl asked something back, probably too adorably for Hoseok to argue because he let her climb up his back. The smile plastered on his mouth turned a tad tense although he didn't breathe another word of pain.

The girl giggled. She patted Hoseok like she would spur her pony.

What Kihyun did next wasn't thoughtless.

It was thought-out, and he knew what would await him for it, but he also knew how whip wounds burned. Like salt. Like a whole ocean in one heart-deep hole. Gently, he took the child in his arms. The girl peered up at him. Kihyun peered down at her.

A slave mustn't lay a hand on masters. No matter _how_ he handled the khal's daughter, the consequences were going to be the same. Kihyun had made his peace with it. It was only fitting, that Kihyun and his owner got flogged at the same time.

Before he could stand the child on the ground, he heard another giggle. The girl snuggled up to him. She started to pick at the froth of the pale isabelline lace Kihyun wore, her fingers curious.

Kihyun watched her. Then, he continued walking. So did Hoseok.

The child played with the hem of Kihyun's sleeve. She seemed to like the fabric.

Kihyun lifted his face.

He found Hoseok staring.

The look slowed Kihyun down. Uncertain, he adjusted his grip on the girl. Her chubby limbs kept wiggling. She wasn't the youngest and weighted quite a bit, but she was small. He could hold her just fine.

Hoseok mimicked him, his strides faltering. He stopped completely.

Until he took one more step, laid an open palm on the side of Kihyun's neck and kissed him.

Kissed him there, in public.

They'd fucked in the open before. But they haven't kissed in front of others. Kihyun willed his shame down. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. This wasn't his life. This wasn't.

The kiss was chaste. It lasted longer than it should.

The girl had to punch Hoseok in the pec to get him off Kihyun. Hoseok tore away and rubbed at the spot with a breathless little laugh. He pinched the kid's cheek.

During dinner, Kihyun barely ate anything. The khal had seen him manhandle his daughter, however carefully Kihyun had done it and no matter what had been his reason. It was still a crime and crimes had to be punished. Kihyun waited for retribution.

It did not come.

He was still sure it would, sooner or later. He kept to Hoseok, thinking it might save him.

Kihyun didn't need saving. The night deepened. People got up and trailed off. So did the khal and his family. One by one, his bloodriders followed, but not until they'd drunk the last drop of their fermented mare's milk. Kihyun emptied his cup as well.

It was warm.

It was warmer still in the yurt. There was no fire tonight. Kihyun took a breath of the stagnant air that filled the abode. He let the flap of the door open to let some life in.

They groped in the dark, only a sliver of moonlight slicing their small home in half; but the ray ended where their bed began.

Kihyun was sweeter tonight. Sweet as the strong aftertaste of airag in the corners of his mouth. He realized he was afraid. Of the flogging that awaited him, perhaps. But that wasn't it. It wasn't _all_. He was afraid he would have to ride tomorrow with the rest of the khalasar and see Pentos again, or even Myr. He didn't want to imagine that. Him, the son of the noble House of Yoo, walking the well-known grounds, owned by those who had burned his lands.

He would have to see the ruins and leave again. He would not belong there. He'd be a nobody in his own home, a visitor. A servant. A bed slave.

He kissed Hoseok's back, cock between his thighs but not inside him yet. Hoseok held himself up on his hands and knees. The slash that halved his back had turned the shade of curdled blood, but it wasn't swollen anymore. That was good. Kihyun kissed his way alongside it, up and down, down and up. Up and down. He thought at the back of his mind it was a pity that Myrish fire didn't grow here. The plant did wonders to wounds.

He went on. He put one hand on Hoseok's manhood, cupping it from below. Everything was warm. His own hands. Hoseok's cock. His hole.

Kihyun pushed his tongue over the smooth rim. The tip of his tongue dipped into the hollow of Hoseok's ass, and he clenched under the contact and whipped around. It was too dark to see. Kihyun had his eyes closed anyway.

He'd become a proper whore.

Tonight, he was trying to get something back.

Exemption from the whiplash, perhaps, or from the voyage, or both. Kihyun spoke with his tongue but without words again, easing his way into Hoseok to tell him he could be good; he could give back; he could still please Hoseok in ways he hadn't yet. No need to punish him. No need to bring another lover from his travels.

Hoseok came from just being tongue-fucked. The sound he let out gathered tangible inside Kihyun's body and sank down into his cock.

And then his cock sank into Hoseok and there were more sounds.

Chest pressed down, Hoseok murmured in a low tone, almost a low whine. The flap of the yurt was still open. The desert slept. Kihyun came so good he hurt. Still inside, he finished Hoseok off with his hand. He pulled out and curled up on his side, run-down.

Hoseok was tardier to lie down. Ever so slowly, he settled atop Kihyun like the night before. He kept touching Kihyun's mouth in wonder. Kihyun let him.

He dozed off still panting.

The two of them didn't speak. That was how things always went. But they communicated even less the morning after. Hoseok still found him outside and brought hot, spiced milk tea; Kihyun still did the daily tasks he was required to do for his master. They went on with their routine. That was all. But there was a wall between them, as if the very air that stood between their bodies turned balmy and could be touched.

Kihyun supposed the planned departure had something to do with it.

That day, he reached out first.

It was a small thing. It was a matter of his own curiosity. He just wanted to know how long Hoseok was going to be gone. The sun was setting. It'd become a broken half of a coin, a red sliver behind the highest peak of the mountain range in the east. Kihyun pointed to the sun. Then he pointed to Hoseok. _Time_ , he was asking.

Hoseok didn't answer. He stood there dumbstruck while every feature in his face gentled. Every little line. He took Kihyun's hands and began to kiss them all over.

The next day, the khalasar left.

Kihyun stayed in the city.

 

Days without Hoseok were pleasantly void.

Kihyun found himself uprooted. In a good way, he reckoned. He hardly ever left the yurt, but when he did, he roamed as he wished and paused where he wished and he wore what he wished. He blended in with the crowd quite easily dressed in breeches and tunics. Hoseok's clothes hung too loose on him, but he preferred the freedom to the silks and laces that slid over his hairless body like snakes.

No one steered his footsteps. Kihyun walked the non-existent border of the city whenever he pleased and imagined he was one of the merchants who brought their goods here and readied themselves to leave again. Once, Kihyun even ventured outside the city. He headed towards the oasis-like place Hoseok had taken him to months ago, but it lay too far to reach it on foot. He gave up halfway.

Kihyun visited the temple, too, to pray for his dead.

He thought of his family more often now since he didn't have to think of Hoseok. Kihyun would like to know if it gave their souls peace – that he asked the Dothraki deity to bless them. Two years back, the same deity had blessed their killers. But gods were gods and people were people. Gods didn't kill.

They didn't care.

Kihyun liked the temple. It was cool inside, and empty, and quiet. He could sit there for hours and dip his fingers in small indoor pools and pick lotuses and sketch great bronze stallion statues. Old warriors and pregnant women and hopeful children trickled in and out of the building as a neverending brooklet. Everyone prayed, but nobody talked. Young couples came to make love by one of the blessed pools, silently asking for the gift of fertility. They brought their offerings, lay them by the shrine and left. Kihyun was the only one who lingered.

Kihyun – and Jooheon.

Jooheon lingered wherever Kihyun did.

At first, the young man had tried to be secretive about his pursuit. His guard soon dropped when Kihyun didn't seem to mind him. Kihyun did mind, naturally; but he wasn't as naïve as to think that Hoseok didn't leave behind anyone to keep an eye on his belongings. There was nothing Kihyun could do.

Strange, to be someone's belonging while he didn't belong anywhere. Not in this city. Not in the yurt. Not even the temple.

Weeks went by.

Jooheon trailed after him closer and closer with each day until finally, Kihyun got fed up and followed him first. Flustered, the young warrior once again attempted to hide his intentions, but Kihyun wouldn't be fooled anymore. He'd grown too snappish to let Jooheon get away. He cornered the man, a scowl sitting firmly on his face. After a brief staredown, Jooheon shrugged. He huffed something in Dothraki and pierced Kihyun with an accusing glare. Kihyun glared back.

So Hoseok truly must have sent him.

Either that, or Jooheon spied on Kihyun out of boredom when he was left in Vaes Dothrak to his own devices.

Kihyun didn't think the latter probable. He'd seen Jooheon in the pit. He was a timid man, but a skilled fighter. He would make a great asset on the road by Hoseok's side. He'd stayed behind for a reason.

Kihyun discovered the reason not long after he had approached Jooheon openly.

It was simple.

Jooheon still hadn't given up on trying to make Kihyun speak.

Or rather _respond_.

Jooheon wasn't as clever as he thought he was, but he was clever. Or maybe Kihyun was clever, but not as clever as he thought he was. He had caught himself on the brink of replying to the man several times over the past week, and it was happening to him more and more often the chirpier Jooheon got. And Jooheon saw it. Saw how, sometimes, Kihyun inhaled to form an answer. How his mimic muscles tempered and rippled under the cheekbones when he realized what he was doing. Invigorated by the progress he was making, Jooheon chatted away.

Kihyun listened.

He'd forgotten how much ease it could bring a person, to be included. To understand. Kihyun supposed it was in human nature – to seek company. Even if the company rambled in bastardized Valyrian and reeked of horses.

Jooheon surprised Kihyun with sudden comments and questions in the quietest moments as well as in the most rushed ones. He did everything and anything so he would elicit a reaction from Kihyun in the end.

Rather than respond to him, Kihyun ached to correct the man's pronunciation or wording. He had to lightly sink his teeth into his tongue to stop himself from saying anything every time Jooheon slipped and used an awkward expression or when his word order was wrong. It occurred to Kihyun a little later the man might be doing it on purpose.

It was a silly sort of endeavour on Jooheon's end, and Kihyun remained strong. He kept to himself because once he gave himself away, he would have no peace.

In time, Jooheon dropped his tactic and began to talk about Hoseok instead.

It was still just a stray comment here and there. Kihyun forgot everything as soon as he heard it. The bits and pieces of recollections that Jooheon shared with him didn't form any coherent story at first.

Until they did. Until Kihyun forgot to forget and let the story take on a clearer shape in his mind. The snippets of Jooheon's memories eventually sank like pearls onto an unbroken string of a necklace which Kihyun couldn't take off no matter how hard he tried. He learned more about Hoseok, whether he wanted or not.

Hoseok liked to breed birds. He had no special reason for it. No birds with broken wings he would nurse back to health as a boy. No fancy for colourful feathers or birdsongs. He just did it. He said he bred them to hunt, but he always let them loose.

Hoseok feared ships, but not water. He could swim, which was a rarity amongst the Dothraki.

When they were fourteen and thirteen, Hoseok had stopped a horse that had nearly trampled Jooheon to death. It had kicked Hoseok square in the chest. His ribs still got bruised easily.

Hoseok never wasted anything.

Hoseok had killed nineteen men in his life, eleven of which he put to grave within a single night.

There had been an uprising four years ago. A smaller branch of Hyunwoo's bloodriders had planned a coup. They had intended to crown Hoseok because the younger of the two brothers was “easier to lead.” Hoseok hadn't known about it. Not until the khal had been wounded and close to dying. It hadn't been nice, Jooheon surmised. Hoseok hadn't left his brother's side and watched him get well again. But first, he had found the rebels. He had killed them all.

One of Hoseok's kills was an accident. He was just too strong.

The rest were his battle trophies.

Hoseok had been the one to help with Hyunwoo's first daughter's birth. He had fainted afterwards.

He liked to play board games, but the Dothraki were generally too impatient to sit and engage in a bloodless match with him. He was good at drawing maps. He had noticed Kihyun three months before he had bought him.

Kihyun listened and hated what he heard. He felt too little compassion for a man and too much for a killer. He took the compassion and folded it and compressed it into a black object in the shape of a chest at the back of his mind. The longer he kept it unopened, the more it fizzled; the heavier it got.

Hoseok had been absent for a month. The full moon came and went. Kihyun visited the temple less often, but when he did, he prayed for the living, too.

Another week later, there was a wedding. Kihyun wouldn't dare to come – wouldn't even think of it – but Jooheon brought him along and sat him down amongst his warrior friends.

The quickly cooling evening didn't shimmer with stars because it was cloudy. Instead, it shimmered with the bride's gold bangles and bells which looked wet to the touch on her dark skin, dissolving in firelight.

People carried jewels and beautiful fabrics and leather belts and laid their gifts before the khaleesi. Bora nodded at each wedding guest from her raised platform. The row kept moving. A smaller, humbler pile of offerings appeared by the newlyweds' table.

Kihyun paid little mind to what was going on around him. He hid in shadows, nursing a bowl of fermented mare's milk. He sipped to keep himself warm, the alcohol flowing through his veins and sparking his body alive without numbing his senses. The lace he wore today stifled him.

The married couple got up around midnight. They hopped on their horses and rode off, the beasts' hooves parting the now black sands and shooting sprays of grains upwards. It appeared the horses and their owners alike knew the way, wherever it was they were headed. The bride and groom cared neither for the deepening darkness nor for the alcohol they'd drunk.

It all reminded Kihyun of something, but he was too preoccupied thinking of things like lace and airag to truly think.

The guests carried on drinking and feasting and the fires kept burning and Jooheon kept gazing towards the wooden throne. He watched one of the khaleesi's handmaidens – or rather shieldmaidens. Kihyun glanced in the same direction. Both men sat far from the raised platform, too far to see properly and to be seen at all, and the distance boldened Jooheon as his narrowed eyes followed the chosen woman.

Kihyun swirled the milk in the bowl. For all the talking Jooheon had done in the past month, he'd told Kihyun awfully little about himself.

Kihyun didn't ask.

Not right away.

He didn't go to sleep that night. Jooheon, for that part, didn't go to sleep either. They put on warmer tunics and furs and wandered around the fighting pit. The place was empty. Jooheon picked up two wooden sabers and threw one at Kihyun. He flinched. He caught the weapon mid-flight, but barely.

Jooheon moved gracefully. He had strong legs. Arms, too, but every hit Kihyun had to fend off remained light. Jooheon went easy on him. Wood clicked, they danced. Dust rose and settled. Everything was slow.

The alcohol had dissipated. His hands turned cold.

“So,” said Kihyun, swinging the saber. His breath came out in a thin cloud. “Which one of them is it?”

Lifting his eyes up, Jooheon easily warded the strike off.

“Gain.”

“That's tough.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you told her?”

“Do I look like I want to be gutted alive?”

“Right now?” Kihyun pretend-stabbed at Jooheon's stomach.

Of course, the man was too swift on his feet. He gave Kihyun a dimpled smile as he jumped back, not even swayed by the attempt.

“Easy.”

With that, Jooheon hit the underside of Kihyun's weapon with the blunt end of his own. He somehow struck the saber out of Kihyun's hand. It fell on the ground. Kihyun looked at it.

“I should let you cut my hair, I suppose.”

Jooheon laughed at that. “Hoseok would cut my head off for that.”

“Did he leave you here to spy?”

“Spy on what?”

“On me.”

“You think I've been spying?”

Now that they were both talking, the low, bastardized dialect of High Valyrian ran off Jooheon's tongue fluently. It was still thickly accented, but the man no longer made mistakes.

“What else?” asked Kihyun. He saw no point in mincing his words. “You stick to me like gold sticks to a Lannister.”

“I've been figuring you out,” said Jooheon with disarming honesty.

He'd disarmed Kihyun in two ways already. Something told him Jooheon knew it.

In spite of the confidence he oozed in volumes, Jooheon shrugged boyishly.

“I also didn't want to be gone for three whole months, so I'm here.”

“Three months,” repeated Kihyun, unthinking.

“Yes. Two or three. That's how long these travels usually take.” Jooheon walked up to Kihyun, bent down and picked up the saber. He dusted it off by tapping it against his boot. “But last time we went, we stayed in Pentos longer than that. A lot longer. Hoseok postponed our return at least four times.”

“I see.”

Jooheon disposed of the sabers. He wiped off his hands.

“Also,” he began.

“Also?” Kihyun prompted him.

Jooheon took some time responding. They sat down on a cool stone wall. The furs kept them warm. Kihyun's blood was still pumping from the fake fight.

The fact he'd come clean could have something to do with it as well. He hadn't begun to regret the decision to talk to Jooheon just yet, though he was sure it was only a matter of time he would.

“I think Hoseok didn't want you to stay here alone,” said Jooheon.

“So he left me with my own personal septa.”

“I don't know that word.”

“It's – forget it.”

“No, I want to know.” Jooheon rubbed the knuckles of his hands. The skin there was cracked, probably from standing guard during long long nights when the temperature was below freezing. “Does it mean something like a guardian? Is it a Valyrian word? Do you only speak Valyrian?”

“You have too many questions.”

“I have even more, actually.”

“Such as?”

“Why don't you ever talk?”

“What would you talk about with someone who bought you?”

“I don't know. I'd start with thanking them for freeing me.”

Kihyun gave a breathy chuckle.

“Freeing you.”

Jooheon blinked once.

“Well, yes.” He hesitated. “Don't you feel free?”

How can a slave feel free?

Kihyun's silence stretched for too long. Jooheon shifted.

“Don't you?” he pressed.

“No.”

“But you're not your former master's property anymore. You don't have to... you know. You don't have to serve or do that thing.”

“Do what thing?”

“Sleep with that man,” said Jooheon slowly. He flushed.

He was right about that. Kihyun slept with his new master nowadays.

A bird of prey flew above them, circling the fighting pit.

Kihyun stood up.

He heard the thud of Jooheon's footsteps behind him.

“I'm sorry I was nosy,” the youth said, rushing after Kihyun.

No response.

“Really. I'm sorry about it. I didn't mean for you to remember... well, all of it. What you had to live through.”

“How is it different from what I'm living now?”

Finally, Jooheon stopped.

“What do you mean?”

“The owners changed. Nothing else did.”

Kihyun walked forward faster. Sand crunched under him. It wasn't black anymore as the first layer of daylight settled over the desert.

It was cold inside the yurt.

 

Jooheon was waiting in the sun when Kihyun woke up and stuck his head out of the yurt, noticing it had to be past noon. The site was quiet and clear of the usual trickle and trample of walkers and horses.

Straightening up, Kihyun stretched like a cat. His limbs had stiffened overnight. He had underestimated the cold. He had slept in furs and sheep skins and without a fire. His throat felt raw.

Jooheon observed him. He had to assume Kihyun would not speak first.

He assumed correctly.

“I still have a sea of questions,” Jooheon announced.

A sea of questions. That was a typically Pentoshi saying. Kihyun thought of Hyungwon and the humming, wave-like drone of his voice. It wasn't the first time since yesterday night that Kihyun had remembered him. Wasn't it inevitable, in a way, to have Hyungwon back inside his head now that Jooheon had brought him up?

Kihyun had done a good job forgetting his old owner. He just thought of the villa and the white harbourfront below it. He thought of that safe half-home he had been forced to leave the same way he had been forced to leave the real one.

Pushing all memories aside, Kihyun passed right by Jooheon. Hoseok's tunic was breezy on his skin.

“Don't feel like talking today?” Jooheon asked as he easily caught up to him. “It's okay. We don't have to talk all the time. We could go for a ride instead. What do you say? I mean – what do you think? At least nod at me if you'd like to go. Kihyun? _Dothrakhqoyi anni_? Do you want to go?”

“Did you just call me a bloodrider?”

“Yes, my bloodrider,” agreed Jooheon, glad to slow down along with Kihyun. He had long legs, but Kihyun had a brusque tempo that could intimidate a war charger.

“ _Anni_ means _my_?” asked Kihyun.

“That's right.”

“What does _naqis hrazef anni_ mean?”

“My small stallion.” Jooheon looked at him. “Why?”

They both looked away the second Jooheon understood why. He murmured a small “oh” as Kihyun blanched.

“Maybe not riding, then,” said Jooheon in a strained voice. “How about shooting?”

“I'm not going to hunt. I don't kill.”

“Like I would let you hunt,” Jooheon laughed. “Have you ever even held a bow?”

“Every nobleman has.”

Jooheon halted, sand squeaking under him.

“You're a nobleman?”

Kihyun smiled with only half of his mouth. “Not anymore.”

His blood was bluer than the great khal's and yet Kihyun served him.

Back when he belonged to Hyungwon, Kihyun thought that a man who gets to own another man at least physically can still maintain his dignity. But that was a dangerous thought. A desperate one. What did it matter which way he got used? He still wasn't allowed to be a human. He had no other purpose in life than to wait on Hoseok. Live through him. Be inside him whenever Hoseok wished. Wash him. Have his head full of stories about Hoseok. Worry when he was gone. Pray for him to leave again. Pray Hoseok didn't sell him.

As absurd as it was, Kihyun still feared being sold forward. He'd changed masters already and he'd experienced the anxiety and sense of invisibility it sowed into one's heart – to be erased all anew. Kihyun couldn't bear it when he'd begun to pick up the pieces. If he had to live a nameless life in any way, he would rather spend it here.

He knew what to expect here.

He used to, anyway, until Jooheon had come along.

“How could a nobleman end up as a slave in Pentos?”

The question washed Kihyun awake like a cold salty wave.

He looked at Jooheon.

“Your people killed mine.”

They walked in silence towards one of the many shooting ranges Vaes Dothrak held within its wall-less walls. The site stood deserted safe for a group of children practising with their tiny bows by the opposite entrance. Kihyun heard their squeals and giggles, but only like a faraway song; like the shift and ebb of singing sands in the Dothraki Sea.

The sun hung high above them. Kihyun and Jooheon put long breezy shawls around their heads to protect their faces and scalps. Slim slits allowed them to see, showing their kohl-lined eyes.

Kihyun took a bow off a hook and weighted it in his hands. Similarly to Dothraki sabers, the bow had a distinct shape Kihyun wasn't used to. He balanced it on his finger, then experimentally pulled at the bowstring.

All the while, Jooheon observed him.

“Can you shoot?” he inquired.

Kihyun wasted no time replying. He hit the bullseye on the first try.

Jooheon whistled a little.

“I take back what I said about you hunting,” the young warrior said sheepishly.

“Don't. I don't hunt. I've never tried to hit a moving target.” Kihyun took another arrow and got it nocked. “But I like shooting. I like the precision of it.”

He let go. The string thrummed and sent a tremor through the wooden limbs of the bow.

The second arrow split the first one in half.

Jooheon joined him at the firing lane. He was accustomed to archery on horseback, be it during hunts or battles, and it showed. He pulled the string with his thumb, using a thick ring to help him hold it in place. He let go. The head of his arrow sank right next to Kihyun's, its feathers trembling.

“You don't hunt, but you shoot better than some of ours,” said Jooheon meditatively. “How come you're so bad with other weapons?”

“I'm not. I know how to fence. I just don't know how to fight.”

“You dropped your saber pretty easily yesterday,” Jooheon reminded him, more curious than unkind.

“Sabers and swords are different. And I'm neither a knight nor a warrior. I fenced with swordmasters, not enemies.”

“I thought you... nevermind.”

“Finish it,” Kihyun prompted him coldly. “You thought that I can't do anything besides fucking. You thought that I'm just a whore.”

“No.” Jooheon frowned. “Not a whore. But – well. A person without much knowledge or training. A _zafra_.”

“What is that?”

Jooheon hesitated. “A slave.” He quickly inhaled to carry on. “Not that it matters whether you're born in shackles or silks. It wouldn't be your fault either way. It's the gods' fault.”

“No. It's the fault of those who enslave others.”

One by one, Kihyun fired the rest of his arrows. He scored the bullseye with each of them.

He splintered another one of Jooheon's arrows for good measure with his last hit.

“I really didn't know you were this skilled,” Jooheon blurted. “I knew you were _more_ skilled than you let on. I knew you could speak Valyrian or Pentoshi. It was fishy when you wouldn't talk to us because – well, you had to communicate with your former master somehow. You did. I saw you two talk during the auction.”

“We talked in Myrish.”

Hyungwon had mostly talked to Kihyun in Myrish. He had been gracious like that. Considerate in the least important way. Generous.

Educated.

When even educated men treated people like tools, what could Kihyun expect from Jooheon's kind?

“Oh,” said Jooheon limply.

“You don't have to be disappointed. You were right. I can speak Pentoshi as well. Only Hyungwon didn't know it.”

Quietly, they took off the shawls. The sun had moved enough for them to bear its light and warmth.

“How many languages do you speak?” Jooheon piped up.

“Many.”

He was born in a port city. Everyone there commanded at least three languages on average, excluding their mother tongue. Kihyun was born a nobleman on top of that. Trade had been his battlefield and language his weapon.

“But no Dothraki?” Jooheon cocked his head.

“I suppose I know a few words now.”

“Which ones?”

Kihyun grimaced.

“You say _alikh_ when you want more and _sekke_ when something's too much. You say _zoqwa_ when you want to be kissed. _Dothrakhqoyi anni_ stands for _my bloodrider_. _Hatif_ means _face_ and _zafra_ means _slave_.” He glanced sideways. Grains of sand were beginning to erase their footmarks by the firing lane. “I thought it was _mahrazh_ , though. That's how the master calls me.”

“The master?”

“Yes.”

“Who... who do you think is your master?” His eyebrows furrowed.

“Hoseok.”

“But Hoseok – he doesn't own you,” said Jooheon incredulously.

“He doesn't?” Kihyun let out the softest snort. He had no wrath left to show. He was as calm as an oasis, having spent all of his focus and pride on the arrow-ridden target. “I am free to go, then.”

“Why would you go?”

“Free men can go where they choose to go. Am I free or am I not?”

“But you are Hoseok's _mahrazh_ and he is yours,” said Jooheon. “That's all I know. People shouldn't leave when they promise to stay together.”

That stopped Kihyun.

“Promise to stay together?”

“Yes.”

“I promised to stay with him?”

“...Yes,” said Jooheon cautiously. “Of course.”

“When did I promise such thing? When I was bought? That was my former master's doing, not mine. Or when I was brought here? That was my new master's doing.”

“He's not your master!”

“No one asked me anything when Hyungwon sold me,” Kihyun continued, ignoring Jooheon's protest. His tone sharpened. “No one asked me if I wished to stay with my new owner. I haven't even spoken to Hoseok. Ever. I haven't consented to any of this. And I sure as seven hells haven't promised him anything.”

“You let him take you into his bed, though.”

Jooheon blushed.

Across of him, Kihyun stood drained of colour.

“I didn't decide to sleep with him. He did.”

“That's not what I heard.”

Kihyun pinned Jooheon with a hard gaze.

“Is that so.”

The youth shrugged. There was a shred of defiance in it.

“You pushed him towards the bed the first night you two slept in the same yurt. Didn't you?”

“To get it over with,” Kihyun agreed coolly.

“To – what?”

“To be done with it sooner. I didn't know what else to do. You told me not to fight him,” said Kihyun, his voice a whisper. “You didn't really have to. I couldn't have fought him had I tried. I couldn't have won. He's too big.”

“Kihyun, what are you saying?” Jooheon's gaze flitted up and down.

“He kept touching me. Like the men before him. I thought he was going to... I had no say in any of it.”

“No, wait –” Jooheon stammered out. “You had. You _do_. I – I told you not to fight him because he had been hurt. Not to go with him against your will!”

“I am here against my will. I went here against my will. I am with Hoseok against my will.”

The last sentence made Jooheon wince.

He gaped at Kihyun.

“'But... you went through the ceremony,” he said in an even smaller voice. “The day after the two of you first...”

“What ceremony.”

“The wedding ceremony.” Jooheon winced harder. He scratched behind his ear. “I mean, it wasn't _really_. Men don't get married, you see. But Hyunwoo decided to humour Hoseok and throw you a feast instead. Hoseok was so happy that you went to him that night –”

“I don't understand a word of what you're saying,” rasped Kihyun.

“I'm saying you're not Hoseok's slave,” said Jooheon earnestly. He took a step forward. It was a Dothraki thing, to invade people's personal space. Their lands and homes, too.

“What else am I?” Kihyun lifted his chin up.

“His _mahrazh_. If not by law, then by Hyunwoo's word.”

Kihyun didn't ask what that word meant. Not this time.

He already knew.

Husband.

“By Hyunwoo's word,” he repeated numbly, his tongue thick in his mouth. “But not mine.”

“I don't understand this,” blurted Jooheon. “You did everything according to our traditions. You accepted Hoseok – in every way. You even rode together, you and him, and you went to the sacred place where the soil is always damp and you...” he said, letting the unsaid dangle in the air.

“We what.” Kihyun forced him to say it. He felt his eyes water. He was unable to close them.

“You sealed the union.”

One time, Kihyun had been to an underwater cave. Half of it had been submerged, half not. He had seen stalactites hang from the ceiling of the cave, dripping water. He was the drop at the end of the stalactite now, marooned somewhere between safety and a free fall.

“Don't tell me,” murmured Jooheon. “You didn't want this? The thing between you and Hoseok – it's not mutual?”

“How can anything be mutual in slavery?” Kihyun murmured back.

“Oh, no. Oh, Kihyun,” said Jooheon heavily. He tilted his head to the side to peer at the shorter man regretfully, eyeing him up and down. “Don't tell me you... You didn't truly think you're just his – you didn't think he – oh, no.”

“What am I to think? He _bought_ me. Whatever you think Hoseok supposedly gave me back – my freedom or dignity – he didn't. He took it all, just like the masters I had before him.”

Jooheon squatted down. For someone so fiery-looking, he sat there heaped and tired, ready to tear up. He looked good five years younger, maybe more. He stared up at Kihyun, taking him in as if he was a stranger whom he only just met for the first time.

And he was, in a way.

So was Jooheon to him.

Kihyun remained standing unmoved where he was. The flesh on his legs stung and crawled the same way when he had bruised it from horse riding. His bones, too. What kept him on his feet had to be sheer willpower, otherwise Kihyun had turned to a pillar of salt without knowing.

As if it wasn't enough he'd already turned into a Dothraki – also without knowing. By symbolic marriage, of all things.

Jooheon spoke up again. His accent sounded thicker as he grasped for words.

“Hoseok thinks you love him back,” he quavered.

The quiet between them trembled the way the end of a fired arrow trembles when it sinks into its target.

“Love him back,” said Kihyun dully, breaking the silence. He smiled. A full smile. “I thought of killing him that first night.”

The deadness of his voice froze Jooheon's face.

Kihyun kept smiling. The rest of his features fell apart.

His heart climbed up his throat and beat there and tasted of vomit.

Love.

Love, of all things.

None of his previous slave owners had tried to take so much from him. None had dared. There had been a boundary to his humiliation. No one had expected Kihyun to kiss the hand that strangles him.

Kihyun had to rephrase that thought. Hoseok wasn't one of them, according to Jooheon. He wasn't his master.

But what did it change? Hoseok still dressed him and used him and paraded him around. He chose what to eat and where to go and how to fuck and when to fuck. He'd reduced Kihyun to his accessory, forever destined to follow him around – right beside Hoseok' horse. It didn't differ from his life at the Chae villa. Hoseok still owned him. He just put a nicer name on it. _Mahrazh._

Kihyun no longer even had his last name.

It was just another of the string of things Hoseok had taken against his will.

And he had the audacity to think this was love, and that Kihyun loved him back, and that Hoseok loved him at all.

The veins in his throat throbbed tighter.

All that rough fucking. All those early breakfasts underneath one fur. All the “freedom” Hoseok had allowed him while unconsciously tying Kihyun in worse ways than he'd ever been tied up before coming here. That wasn't it. That was nowhere near love. To love, they would have to be equal.

But they weren't.

They didn't even talk.

Love had to be rooted. It had to grow through a person and become their very veins.

Love was understanding. Two people who didn't share a language couldn't understand each other.

One could care. Perhaps. One could get used to the other person's laughter. The scent of their neck. Their deep breathing when they were asleep. One could learn their habits and notice little things like freckles or bowlegged walk or that the bow of their upper lip was slightly uneven.

Stiffly, Kihyun squatted down too. He eyed Jooheon as Jooheon eyed him.

“I wouldn't harm him now, even if I had the means to do it,” said Kihyun in an undertone. “You don't have to look so scared.”

“I'm not scared,” he retorted. “I'm... Oh, fuck.”

“Excuse my Valyrian, but fuck, indeed.”

Jooheon gaped.

“Should noblemen talk like that?”

“I'm not a nobleman anymore. Your folk took care of that.”

Shrinking into himself, Jooheon rubbed at his face and neck with aimless hands which wandered up and down to hold onto something, but didn't find anything solid enough. His mouth was parted.

“Is that why you considered killing Hoseok?” Jooheon asked at last. He forced the question out word by word, with slowness that could rival the moon's path across the sky. “Do you... hate us all?”

“I don't think it's hate. I don't have enough strength for that.”

“What is it, if not hate?” Jooheon murmured. He was still gripping his head.

“It's not love, that's for sure.”

“I don't understand this. You told him he's your sun,” the warrior accused, louder now.

Kihyun let another smile thin his lips. They were colourless, a little cracked.

Hoseok? His sun?

If Hoseok was the sun, Kihyun was a wasteland it scorched.

Amused, he felt his mouth stretch wider. It was the sort of amusement that hurt.

“I'm sorry, I did what?”

“You pointed to the sun and then to him,” said Jooheon. “You told him he's the sun of your life.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You did! He gushed about it for hours! I think it was right before he left for Pentos.”

Kihyun thought back. He thought hard.

He came up empty.

Except for...

“Oh.”

“Do you remember now?” said Jooheon cagily.

“Yes.”

“See!”

“He got it wrong, thought. I was trying to find out how long he was going to be away. I've only ever seen you people use sundials to tell the time. I had no idea how else to ask,” said Kihyun simply.

Jooheon stared.

“You could've asked in Valyrian!” he shouted. His temper rose, surge-like, crushing those who stood in its way. “You could've asked about everything! You could've talked from the very beginning! Everything would be solved by now and Hoseok – and Hoseok – by gods, this will ruin him.”

The black compact chest at the back of Kihyun's mind began to ooze.

“What exactly would be solved, pray tell?” he countered. “Hoseok paid for me. Nothing can change that. If that doesn't make me his slave, it still makes me his property. He never treated me otherwise. He didn't give me a chance to choose where I wanted to go with that freedom you speak of so nonchalantly. Hoseok didn't ask any questions. He brought me along and put me in pretty clothes like I was still a whore. He could have let me go. But instead he decided to own me. He decided to take me here and lock me in this place full of people who I see in my worst nightmares.”

Kihyun talked without a drop of emotion.

Inside, he was all emotions.

The flood of words which he wasn't used to from Kihyun overpowered Jooheon for a minute.

“He took you with us because it would give you a better life,” he said weakly.

“I had a better life once. My life.”

That overpowered Jooheon for more than a minute.

“Kihyun...”

“Don't say anything,” Kihyun shook his head. “Sometimes it's better to stay silent.”

“No, it's not,” protested Jooheon.

“It is for me.”

“But you can't –”

“Just be quiet, please. And don't say anything to Hoseok. None of what we just talked about. Not even that I know Valyrian.” When he saw that Jooheon was inhaling to contradict him again, Kihyun cut him off. “I mean it. I told you I don't want to hurt him.”

They sat there sizzling in sunlight until Kihyun noticed the bridge of Jooheon's nose was becoming sunburnt and his forehead flushed. He motioned for the younger man to get up. Jooheon listened to the command, straightening up with no life in his limbs.

Moving about tardily, they collected the arrows and polished the bows and went their separate ways. Jooheon tried to say something before they parted, drawing in a shallow breath to give himself some courage. Nothing came out. Jooheon breathed out a frustrated sound. He set his jaw and let his dimples dip deep and he walked off.

 

Darkness had crept over the city by the time Kihyun sat down to kindle a small fire. He heated up his dinner, but ate without knowing what he was putting in his mouth. It all tasted like spice and smoke.

He put the tray away when he was done. He looked up.

Jooheon peeked inside the yurt. His head floated above the ground, the rest of his body still outside.

“Couldn't sleep,” he murmured.

Kihyun patted the sheep skins. Jooheon shuffled in place. He walked in and approached Kihyun slowly. A snake catcher might walk up to an especially venomous rattlesnake like this. Ever so carefully, Jooheon settled down next to him. Kihyun watched him. His hair was wet. It smelled nice.

Jooheon cleared his throat. He put his feet towards the fire to get warm and then he cleared his throat again.

“What happened... to your family?”

“They're dead.”

“I figured.” Jooheon cowered a little at his own bluntness. He peered at Kihyun.

“I don't know what else to tell you,” said Kihyun. “They're gone.”

“You don't have to talk about it. I know I wouldn't want to,” said Jooheon quietly.

“I don't.”

“But I want you to know,” he rushed, shifting in his spot to face Kihyun, “I want you to know that it couldn't have been us. None of us has ever been as far as Myr. It's too close to the sea. It's _all_ sea. Even the Myrish have to travel across seas and canals to cross Myr. We don't... we can't... we wouldn't be able to do that. Our horses are not trained to wade through water or survive on ships. Hell, even our bravest warriors wouldn't survive that.”

“If it wasn't your tribe and your khal, it was a different Dothraki tribe with a different Dothraki khal,” said Kihyun blankly. He picked up a fire poker. He held it in his hand without doing anything with it. “So it wasn't you or Hoseok or your clan. Does that give me back my name? Does it give me back my family?”

“I – no, it doesn't.”

“Then it means nothing to me. It just means that your clan thieves and rapes and burns villages down closer to your home.”

Jooheon stared at him stricken.

“Am I wrong?” said Kihyun. He dug the tip of the poker into the ground and grabbed its handle as if it was a cane. “You still go and take what isn't yours.”

“Only when we can't get it by fair exchange,” barked Jooheon.

“So it's either that weaker tribes give you their goods and crop and livestock at the price you fix, or you refuse to pay at all.”

Jooheon was silent.

“And their women either go with you without putting up a fight, or you take them. But you always give them the chance to humiliate themselves first before _you_ humiliate them, right?” He squeezed the handle of the poker tighter. “That's very generous of you.”

Jooheon was silent.

“And you don't burn other people's lands – unless they try to defend themselves first.”

Jooheon was silent.

“And, naturally, you don't enslave people. We are all free to go. Go back to those homes we don't have anymore – thanks to you.”

Jooheon was silent. Until he let out a weak “We do this to live, you know. We don't have soil where we could grow grass for our livestock and wheat for us. We don't have rivers and ponds and underground streams. We have to exchange things – or take them.”

“You seem to be getting by pretty well. You've learned how to trade. You're rich and well-fed and feared all across the Dothraki Sea. No need to take anything else that isn't yours.”

“That's true. That's why we rarely ever fight anymore, unless it's to defend Vaes Dothrak. This place is our pride. We've built this city and we leave it so seldom that most of our folk live here all year long. Some have never seen other lands.” Carefully, Jooheon took the poker away from Kihyun. He ran it through the blazing coals before them. The cinders breathed hot. “When we do leave, it's to trade. The khalasar heads to Pentos every few months to buy stuff we need.”

“You'd make me believe you're the most peaceful Dothraki tribe there is,” said Kihyun.

“We're peaceful. At least that's what we've been for the past few years. A decade, maybe. We're not at war with anyone.”

“You are, it's just a war you've already won. You still own slaves. You still take from the weak.”

“Not for fun. Not because we would want to ruin other people's homes and lives.” Jooheon put the poker down. He reached forward and motioned vaguely in front of Kihyun's face, the shape he encircled in the air with his splayed fingers resembling the shape of Vaes Dothrak. “We've changed now that we have a place to go back to. Once you gain something like this... something so strong but fragile, something that was built of dust and could turn back to dust if you don't take care of it, you want to protect it. You don't want to leave it.”

“I don't know how that feels anymore.”

Jooheon put his hand down. He stammered.

“It... it could be your home, too. This place.”

“I had a home. I had two. First my real home. Then the home I tried to make for myself when Hyungwon was my owner. You took both.”

“Kihyun...”

His eyes were fixed on the flames. He waited for a bit.

“Yeah?” Kihyun prompted Jooheon to speak up when he wasn't saying anything for too long.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Is it about my family?”

“No – no, I promise I won't talk about them.”

“Ask, then.”

“All those things you talked about... Slavery, clan wars. Killing.” He hesitated. “How is it different from what the Westerners do?”

“I'm not saying it's different. I'm saying it's not right.”

“But if your people do it, it's right? It's – civilized?”

“It's not,” said Kihyun resolutely. “I'm not saying you're bad and we're good. You're no worse than us and we're no better than you. This isn't a cultural thing. Slavery exists. Wars happen. People die. People die worldwide. People are enslaved worldwide. I know that. I know all of that. It's something neither of us can fix. Not even your khal can change that. Not even our king.”

“If you know that, if you know that we're the same –”

“We're not the same. You're not forced to live with a Myrishman who's responsible for your being alone in this world. But I'm here,” he rasped, “with all of you.”

Kihyun wondered if it made him a slaveholder too, to be bound to Hoseok. Whatever Hoseok owned, Kihyun should in theory own too. That included this yurt. The food he put in his belly. The furs he slept on. The servants who waited on them both.

It also included Hoseok.

Which of it should be Kihyun's new home? This place, or this person?

He felt a touch at the nape of his neck. It was very warm. He leaned back. He shut his eyelids, but not all the way. Only to the point that his eyelashes met. Wet. If he closed his eyes, it would push the wetness out and Jooheon would see him break. He let his head fall further back, right into Jooheon's hold.

“I don't know where to go,” he croaked out. His voice was even wetter and lighter than his lashes. “I don't know what to do.”

“You can move in with me,” said that naïve soul.

“With you?” snorted Kihyun.

“Yes. That could be a start,” said Jooheon in a timid tone. His touch remained firm. “Instead of a _mahrazh_ , you can have a brother.”

Kihyun shattered.

“I had a brother.”

“Fuck,” Jooheon whispered.

The word fell dark, a drop of lead.

Before Kihyun knew it, Jooheon was clutching him. He sobbed. It came out choked as he tried to force the sound back, but his grief forced it out with strength that was almost physical. After the first sob, Kihyun had no way of silencing the rest. No walls left. He did nothing except for hold on to Jooheon's waist.

There were sea-like sounds – Jooheon did his all to soothe him, _shh_ , _shh_ , but it didn't work, it couldn't, and Jooheon knew it. He tried anyway. _Shh_ , _shh_.

Kihyun cried so hard his head hurt. His forehead, his temples, all was on fire. The air on his skin weighted more than the whole world. Jooheon cupped his head. Kihyun feared he might upturn it to look at him, but Jooheon didn't. He just spoke to him. His murmurs eventually began to make sense.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Kihyun.”

In a true Dothraki way that knows no boundary and no shame, Jooheon kissed his forehead like a real brother would. The closer he pressed, the sadder, the smoother his words flowed.

“You can – you can move to a different city. I'll take you there. Fuck, if you wait, _Hoseok_ will take you there. I promise. I promise. There are dozens of smaller settlements in the desert where you can start anew. You can live on your own here with us, or there, or... or I could introduce you to Minhyuk, he travels through Vaes Dothrak every now and then and – and he could take you with him when he goes to Myr again –”

“I can really leave?”

“Of course,” said Jooheon in a whisper. “Of course you can. It will be painful for Hoseok, but I can bet my life that this would hurt him more.”

“What would?” Kihyun shuddered out a breath.

“You – like this. That we made you into this.” He pressed another, longer kiss on the top of Kihyun's head. “I'm so... so sorry, Kihyun. We had no idea. No idea at all. Hoseok really thought he was giving you a new home and happiness.”

“Well, I have a roof over my head, don't I,” he said vacantly. “That's something.”

“But you hate us.”

“I told you it's not hate.” He sniffed. “It's scarier.”

Now Jooheon did turn Kihyun's face up to search in it.

“Scarier?”

“Yeah.”

“How so?”

“You're all more human than I am. You have your lives. You live them. While all I do is float here.” He spoke laboriously. His nose was clogged. “You do good and you do bad. I do nothing at all.” He took an open-mouthed breath. He inhaled the earthy smell of Jooheon's leather vest. “You care.”

“We do,” affirmed Jooheon, sotto voce.

“That's the worst thing you've done to me. You care, and you make me care. You make it hard. Harder than it is.”

“Wait – so you meant it? You meant it when you said you don't want to hurt Hoseok?”

“I meant it,” said Kihyun. He was so tired.

“You care?”

“You say that as if it's a good thing.”

Jooheon winced. He sat down on his heels and let his hands drop to his lap. He still towered a little taller than Kihyun even as his shoulders sloped.

“It really doesn't help, then? Not even a little?” Jooheon inclined his head the slightest bit. “That it wasn't us? That Hoseok had no part in what happened to you?”

“It's worse when it helps. I'm not supposed to – I can't. I can't.”

Jooheon stared at him.

He gave a grave nod.

He didn't ask any further.

 

Days without Hoseok remained pleasantly void.

Kihyun found himself uprooted again. In a strange way, he reckoned. He hardly ever left the yurt, but when he did, he roamed as he wished and paused where he wished. Only this time he did it knowing that it was his own authority that permitted him to wander about the city, and not Hoseok's. He felt no oppressive shadow of Hoseok's power that would cling to him even in the man's absence, rendering Kihyun untouchable.

For the first time in ages, Kihyun was allowed to just be.

He drank the opportunity in.

Nothing had truly changed, not outwardly. People still greeted him the way they always used to, with hurried nods and salutes. The word had spread that Kihyun commanded no common language, so his contact with anyone besides Jooheon was limited to gestures. Merchants called to Kihyun to try their goods, unravelling gorgeous brocades and cloths of gold, beckoning him to taste Dornish wine and blood oranges. It was all as usual. The world went on.

It wasn't that Kihyun had a place it in all of a sudden. He'd had it the whole time.

The next time a couple of servants came to the yurt to sugar wax his body, Kihyun politely turned them out. Neither of them questioned him. The servants scrambled for their bowls full of powder and sugar paste and left. Kihyun partly expected them to be back by the following morning, but nobody came.

His hair grew back about a week later, sparse in softer places but visible on his calves and forearms. A dark trail snaked from his navel down to his groin.

He picked up a habit of going to the temple at night. He spent his days at the shooting range nowadays. Firing at the target gave him a sense of equilibrium. He liked that he had to be as strung as the bowstring, as taut as the limbs of the bow. Balanced. Sharp. Kihyun focused on the small black space that blinked ahead of him while he allowed himself to forget the other, smaller and darker space inside his head that threatened to slam open and let out his crawling thoughts.

Jooheon occasionally joined him. He had stopped shadowing Kihyun everywhere he went after the talk, which he welcomed, and only ever tagged along when they met naturally.

In time, they began talking again.

About weather at first. About the desert and plants and weeds that grew there and about Jooheon's mare. Yoshi, he called her. She was a plain but pretty thing. Unlike Jooheon, whose looks could frighten an army of enemies, but who was actually very pliant, the mare only looked sweet. She almost bit Kihyun's hand off the first time he tried to stroke her head.

It was thanks to Yoshi that Kihyun realized he was no longer afraid of horses. Their bone-crushing teeth and bulging, bloodshot eyes didn't appear in his dreams anymore, and Kihyun found that the real thing was nowhere near as terrifying as his warped memories. He still trusted the mare a little more than Hoseok's beast even though the latter had a much calmer temper.

Bit by bit, Jooheon got chattier around Kihyun, bridging the distance between them without looking down at the river of grief and gore that ran under that bridge. Another week later, he introduced Kihyun to Minhyuk, a man with sun-bleached hair put up in a bun that tinkled with bells forged of all types of precious metals.

Jooheon didn't have to give Kihyun's secret away. Minhyuk was a travelling merchant who passed through Vaes Dothrak every few months, bringing books and maps and expensive inks to sell. He knew several languages, perhaps as many as Kihyun, and though he talked in a choppy manner and jumped from topic to topic, his Myrish and Pentoshi flowed especially smoothly.

Hearing his mother tongue unravelled something long lost within Kihyun. He remembered summertime paths home from long voyages along the seaside. The balconies overseeing the gardens. His brother's humour, which would target Kihyun more often than not. He thought of the orchards again. He saw them clear, unburnt. He wondered whether the khalasar travelled as far as to Myr this time around. He wondered if he should pray it didn't.

Minhyuk was the kind of company who didn't mind silence, but never kept it. When he wasn't talking to Kihyun, he translated for Jooheon and vice versa. The three of them hid in the shade of Minhyuk's merchant stall for whole afternoons, doing very little aside from eating his neighbour's dates and almonds hardened in honey. Minhyuk was so skilled that he could uphold three conversations at once. He didn't even break a sweat. He was the sweetest storm. He haggled with customers, winded Jooheon up, and threw witty remarks in Kihyun's direction, usually aimed at their Dothraki friend's expense; all in one breath.

Kihyun didn't know if he would find Minhyuk likeable were his situation different.

It brought him some ease, though, to be just a person in an endless line of Minhyuk's acquaintances. He wasn't Kihyun the slave or Kihyun the nobleman in those moments shared with Minhyuk. He wasn't Kihyun the _mahrazh_. He was utterly nameless – in a way that didn't erase his existence.

In a way that acknowledged it.

Minhyuk didn't stay in the city for long. He was too eager to be on the way, to be moving. He left the air cleared behind him. Even in this aspect, he was a storm.

Kihyun thought of joining him. He had things to solve and settle first, though.

Hoseok had been gone for two months.

One more to go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/mrtvej_pes)


	3. Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Please note that this story will have four chapters in total instead of three.

“Do you normally do that? That thing with your mouth?”

“What thing,” asked Kihyun tonelessly, zeroing in on the bullseye. He let go. The arrowhead found home, thudding right above Jooheon's arrow.

He was getting better at this. Better than ever.

The other day, he had hit Jooheon's arrow mid-flight.

Jooheon was still indignant about it.

Kihyun looked at him. He saw Jooheon shift his weight from foot to foot.

“That... thing,” said the warrior.

Wind whistled. Kihyun pointed the bow down. He raised his eyebrows at Jooheon.

“Very specific.”

“You know what I'm talking about. _The thing_ ,” Jooheon urged.

“Repeating the same sentence three times won't make me understand what you mean.”

“The – thing. With your mouth.” Jooheon blushed so bad he looked sunburnt. “ _There_.”

“Where?” As soon as he said it, Kihyun let out a small “oh.” He allowed a chuckle to slip past his lips. “You mean eating cock?”

“No,” retorted Jooheon, burning even brighter. “The other place. Is it something you Myrishmen do?”

Kihyun coloured a little. He picked up another arrow to busy his hands.

“Sometimes. Don't you?”

“No. Not that I know of.” Jooheon hesitated. “I mean, I've never done it.”

“You should try.”

“How do you know it's not... unclean?” he blurted.

“I watch Hoseok wash every night.” His navel tightened. He muttered the rest. “Trust me. I know. I wouldn't have done it otherwise.”

“Do you like doing it?”

“I don't know. I don't even know why I did it, honestly.”

But he did know. He had done it to tie Hoseok down, too, so he wasn't the only one stuck.

Jooheon's curiosity threw Kihyun off, so he hung the bow on a hook after he wiped it clean. He wiped his hands next. He looked up at Jooheon, which the younger man took as a silent signal, and got up from his spot. He joined Kihyun and they walked to the edge of the shooting range where they climbed on a low wall, far from other archers and practising children. Kihyun peeled an orange and split it in half. Jooheon had his mouth full before Kihyun could say “Dothraki.”

“Do you and Hoseok often talk about me?” he threw in.

“Yeah.”

“Even about the sort of stuff we do in bed?”

Jooheon had the decency to turn his face down. When he glanced up again, he was sheepish.

“I guess you could say that.”

“Doesn't it disgust you?”

“Not really. I've _seen_ men having sex. It's not that big of a deal.”

Oh. Kihyun almost forgot men sometimes fought and fucked at the same time in the pits or during celebrations. Women, too. Men and women together. Nobody cared much. Kihyun had ceased going to these events since he had no one to accompany or cheer on, so he had grown unused to certain... customs. He shifted awkwardly. Jooheon appeared just as awkward, if not more.

Kihyun decided to tease him. He quite enjoyed it when Jooheon squirmed.

“Sex is not a big deal, but kissing someone down there is?” he taunted.

“Hoseok didn't really describe it as kissing,” said Jooheon petulantly.

“I see. Well. I must say you two share a lot,” Kihyun observed as he chewed on the orange.

“I'd say you two share more,” Jooheon quipped back.

They finished the orange.

“Isn't it the same with women, though?” Kihyun asked at last. “Don't you use your mouth?”

“Well...”

“Don't tell me.”

“It's – it's usually very quick,” said Jooheon. His neck was turning the shade of his face.

“As in, you don't last long?”

“I last long!” Jooheon huffed. It made Kihyun grin. “But,” he continued, “the start is always fast. I don't even know how I got there and I'm suddenly inside.”

“It's because one minute you are sparring and the next you're fucking.”

“You're not wrong,” Jooheon grudged. He still shone all shades of red. “I suppose I can't complain. That's the only way I've ever...”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds a little tedious.”

“It is,” Jooheon whispered. “Don't get me wrong. It's exciting – at first.”

“Have you and Gain ever sparred like this?” inquired Kihyun.

“By gods, no. She would crush my head.”

“Isn't that the point?”

“I can't believe I'm saying this, but I liked you more when you didn't talk. You look all polite and petite, like a misplaced word would break you, but that tongue of yours is lethal,” Jooheon sulked.

“I hope Hoseok would agree.”

“By gods!”

Kihyun grinned.

“You're so shy for someone who regularly does it in public.”

“I don't do it that often,” Jooheon defended.

“Don't like to take the reins?”

Jooheon's grimace was telling enough.

It was too amusing.

“I guess you don't,” commented Kihyun, ignoring Jooheon's glower. “In that case you should challenge Gain, lose on purpose and let her ride you,” he suggested half-jokingly.

“Ride me?” Jooheon blinked.

Kihyun darted an owlish glance at him.

“Yes.”

“Ride me – how?”

“Like a horse,” said Kihyun simply.

Then an epiphany washed over him. Had he ever taken Hoseok otherwise than on all fours or on his belly?

However imposing Hoseok was, however strong, he had yet to demand being physically in charge. He would choose when to fuck, where to fuck, and how many times a night – but not the position. Frowning, Kihyun urged the gears inside his mind to spin. He tried to oil the clockwork of his thoughts by imagining things he shouldn't imagine in someone else's presence, and it worked, and yet he had no memory of Hoseok straddling him.

Hoseok would tug and shove Kihyun where he needed him and he would undress him and caress him, all on his own terms. His dominance would end there, though.

“You don't do that, either?” Kihyun piped up.

“No?” said Jooheon, uncertain.

“But your folk are literally called the horselords,” he said stupidly.

“We don't do it with horses,” Jooheon prickled up.

“I'm not saying you do,” Kihyun said quickly, placating the sea storm that took over the warrior's features. “I would just expect you to know this... method.”

“Well, I don't.”

Lips pursed, Jooheon picked at the orange peels. He was sulking again.

Kihyun glanced around. He took Jooheon by the wrist and held him as he slinked down the wall on the opposite side of the training area. He landed on his toes and crouched. Jooheon followed after him. He fell down with his back to the wall.

“Sit down,” said Kihyun. He pushed at Jooheon's shoulders.

Doe-eyed, the warrior listened, as he had endless times before.

Gain should like this, Kihyun thought as he maneuvered Jooheon's legs into place. He hovered above the younger man for awhile, musing. He straddled Jooheon's thighs. They were sturdy.

Meanwhile, Jooheon could only gape. He had no idea where to put his hands until Kihyun guided them.

“You can hold her here,” he said, and made Jooheon grip his hips. “Or a little lower.”

“Oh,” murmured Jooheon. Except for his hands, which were still shaking and grasping and slipping, he was stiff. Finally, he closed his palms over Kihyun's hip bones.

“You have a strong lower body,” commented Kihyun. “You'll be able to do this just fine.”

“Thanks.” Jooheon burned. He traced the pattern of Kihyun's tunic with a seemingly focused but flitting gaze so he didn't have to lock eyes with him. He moved, curious.

Kihyun moved with him.

He laid his hands on Jooheon's shoulders, digging his fingers there. Jooheon wore a harnessed leather vest over his bare chest. Kihyun made sure to graze the skin.

“Like this,” he said in a low voice. He rocked down and back up, down and back up, his hips going slow. “You could also let her lay you down.”

Jooheon looked up.

And kept looking.

In his head, Kihyun had probably turned into Gain already.

Kihyun decided to mess with him and arched his back. He gazed at Jooheon with heavy-lidded eyes.

Jooheon cursed in Dothraki.

Something brushed against the back of Kihyun's thigh then, and Jooheon scrambled up so quickly he nearly broke both of his legs. He crawled to the side, covering his crotch as he rushed to put some space between them. Kihyun fell off of him. He threw his head back in silent laughter. He made a small sound occasionally, one arm pressed against his stomach. He laughed so long and hard his muscles hurt and so did his mouth.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a pouting blur that was Jooheon. It wrenched a high-pitched cackle out of him.

“Are you quite finished?” Jooheon snapped.

Kihyun wheezed.

Jooheon kicked sand at him.

“It's not my fault you look pretty!”

“You look quite pretty yourself,” said Kihyun sweetly as his shoulders shook.

“I kind of get Hoseok now,” grumbled Jooheon.

“Is that so?” Kihyun grabbed a fistful of hot, dense sand and playfully threw it at Jooheon. “Did I perhaps turn you to our side?”

“You're not that powerful,” he pouted.

“Excuse me?” demanded Kihyun, pretending to be offended. “And what is this?” he pointed at Jooheon's cock.

“That's – you and Gain have the same eye shape – shut up.”

Kihyun threw more sand at him.

Jooheon kicked some more back.

“I'm just saying that I get him now. Hoseok, I mean.” Avoiding Kihyun altogether, Jooheon brushed dust off his breeches, staring at his groin sadly. “He always says he first fell for you when you were laughing. You _are_ pretty, you know. Especially when you do that.”

“Why thank you,” Kihyun replied in a breezy tone that didn't quite feel like him.

“No, I'm serious. You... light up.”

“Poetic.”

“Whatever.”

“We should get married. That's the Dothraki way, isn't it. You see something, you like it, you take it.”

Falling silent, Jooheon shifted so he was sitting on his feet. He parted his lips and closed them. He fumbled for words.

Kihyun had no wish to torture him.

“I can't believe I had something to laugh about back then,” he remarked offhandedly.

Jooheon dared to dart a glance at him. He turned towards Kihyun fully when he found him calm, if somewhat serious.

“The first time Hoseok saw you, you were walking down this really, really long colonnade. You were with your master and I was with Hoseok and there were so many people everywhere that all four of us got stuck in the crowd together. I don't know what it was that you saw or heard that was so funny to you, but you suddenly laughed. You just lit up, like now. You laughed and that was it. Hoseok wouldn't shut up about you.”

“That so.”

Jooheon hummed. “We didn't know you were a slave at first. You were so nicely dressed. Hoseok would always come to the same place and wait for you.”

“I never saw him.”

“But he would watch you every day.”

“It would have creeped me out if I had known,” said Kihyun. “If I had noticed him, I would have thought that he was about to steal me.” He snorted. “Which he did, in the end. Sort of.”

“Are you – are you really not glad you're gone from that place?”

Kihyun shrugged.

“Maybe.”

He wouldn't know what to say if Jooheon asked whether he was glad to be here.

“Kihyun?”

“Yes?”

“Did you – love your master? The last one?” he asked cautiously.

“What makes you say that?”

“You said you had tried to make his place your home.” Uncertain, Jooheon leaned forward. “Was it because you loved him?”

“I can be proud of one thing. I have never loved a master.”

And he no longer had to fear that he would.

He feared other things. He feared Hoseok might prove to be a master after all, _his_ master, and that he might take this fragile sense of freedom away from Kihyun to keep him here. He feared Hoseok's strength. He feared he could cut it down. Burn the hand that had opened his cage.

Most of all, he feared that this city was the last on earth he had a place in.

What if there was nothing better waiting for him anywhere; nothing good. No one.

Here he had a brother.

“What if you hadn't been his property?” inquired Jooheon, his voice softening. “Would you have loved him?”

“Hoseok?”

“No. Your former owner.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Was he kind to you?”

“He was kind for a master.” There was a pause. “But not kind enough for a person.”

Jooheon waited for him to elaborate.

So Kihyun did.

“Hyungwon and I are the same, you see. Both of us value knowledge and know the importance of good business. We both have blue blood. We both come from the Free Cities. The _Free Cities._ ” Kihyun took a breath. “And we're both unkind.”

“You're not,” said Jooheon, frowning. “Not you.”

“I am, though. I've never owned a slave in my entire life and neither had Hyungwon until he bought me. That doesn't make us kind, though. I've never owned another person, but I've never freed anyone, either. I only started caring when I became a slave myself. Not until then.”

“You cared about your subjects. Didn't you?”

“Yes, but –”

“Did the rest of your family own slaves?”

“No.”

“And your subjects? Were they allowed to own and trade people?”

“No. It was forbidden and persecuted.”

“So you cared enough.”

It didn't sit at the back of his throat any less bitter. He once used to have the power to do something. To truly do something. He could have influenced other noblemen and merchants. He had done so _little –_ and yet he expected others to do it all.

“I don't know,” said Kihyun. He sagged. “I used to think that.”

“But you're free now – and you still care.” Jooheon reached out to graze the pad of his thumb over the spot on Kihyun's forehead he sometimes kissed. “You're kinder towards us than you think you should be. That takes a lot of strength. Don't think I forgot how you took care of Hoseok's wound even though you didn't have to. You could've just watched him suffer, but that's not you.”

“I don't even know what _is_ me.”

“A little bit of a samaritan. That's you.”

Kihyun frowned.

“Explain.”

“You're giving. You give even when there's nothing and nowhere to take from.”

“I don't think I do that.”

“You do. You gave me a chance.”

The words chilled Kihyun.

He had also given a chance to a particularly thick Dothraki lexicon which he opened nightly nowadays to learn a couple of words before going to bed.

Kihyun loved languages and learning and this tiny task gave him a purpose – something to look forward to on a daily basis. He had no desire to study Dothraki as a whole and stuck to a selected handful of phrases instead, practising some of them on Jooheon from time to time.

He wasn't learning Dothraki so he would know the language. His goal was simpler. He was searching for a common ground. Just as Hoseok had tried to greet him in a way Kihyun would understand, he felt it fitting to try and say goodbye in a way understandable for Hoseok. He had to use words which Hoseok knew to explain to him why it hurt to stay here.

Kihyun wasn't normally a slow learner. Nevertheless, Dothraki gave him trouble. The language fell off his tongue like heavy stones, rugged and rhotic. Myrish and Pentoshi were both very merciful towards Kihyun's light lisp, their overall softness hiding any slurs and slips, but Dothraki wasn't soft unless it was wordless.

The horselords laughed in honeyed outbursts and deep rumbles, and they beckoned their horses with sweet whistles, and whenever they shouted victorious in the fighting pit, the sound carried to the sky with harmony Kihyun couldn't ever reproduce; not that he had tried. In that, the Dothraki folk reminded him of rivers and weirs.

The way they spoke was anything but harmonious, though, and Kihyun could congratulate himself that he didn't need to master the language. He would break his jaw first.

Kihyun stored a word into his memory each day, and later two, and even later three. In thirty days, he memorized a hundred words.

He would've liked to know if it was enough.

 

The city rumbled with hooves and voices. The commotion could only mean that the khalasar was back. People were flooding the streets to celebrate the khal's return.

Kihyun heard them all the way from the yurt. He lifted his head and listened. He put down the kettle he was holding, careful not to lay it down on a stack of open dictionaries he had been leafing through the night before. The tea could wait.

He went to the door – and stopped. Gripping the flap of the yurt, Kihyun exhaled and pursed his lips. He should look presentable and put on one of the Myrish garments Hoseok had bought for him. He almost turned back.

Then he remembered he didn't have to.

He didn't have to dress up for anyone.

He walked out as he was. He joined the crowd and let it lead him to the gates above which two giant horse statues towered tall towards the sky. Their bronze bodies shone bright, burnished by wind and grains of sand. The horses had their front legs up and locked together to form an arch above the entryway.

The Dothraki horde rode and marched, coloured by sundown. Kihyun saw the khal and his bloodriders pass under the statues.

He carried on walking, moving slower now since the throng had congested the place. He only halted when he pushed to the very front of the gathering. He noticed Jooheon's fit frame not too far away and considered warding his way towards the man, but thought better of it. There were just too many people.

Hyunwoo and his bloodriders went through the gate first. They came victorious, with washed-out voices and as sweaty as their horses. Hoseok rode lit up besides his brother. He was laughing. It was the kind of laughter that was already about to end and leave the face gentler.

Just as Hoseok tore away from Hyunwoo to steer his beast of a horse forward where the path was clear, he spotted Kihyun amongst the masses.

Kihyun watched him. He wondered how to tell him.

_This can't be my home. I can't be married to you._

He saw Hoseok dismount and thrust the reins at one of his servants. They exchanged a few words. Hoseok turned back to Kihyun. He was wide-eyed. He scanned Kihyun up and down.

_I didn't choose this._

The crowd poured from left to right, from right to left. Everything got louder. Hoseok sped up.

_We can speak the same language._

Shielding his vision against the sun, Kihyun watched as Hoseok made his way towards him.

He stood there unmoving.

Anchored.

Hoseok walked up to him. He looked Kihyun up and down again, recognizing his own clothes. They sat on Kihyun's body like second skin, secured by a bronze belt. Slowly, Hoseok took one last stride towards him. He gripped Kihyun exactly where the belt ran around his waist.

Hands splayed over Kihyun's sides, Hoseok pulled him close. So close Kihyun was truly anchored, surrounded by Hoseok from all sides; a tiny ship still afloat, but swaying. Held down by the ocean. Held.

It felt like waiting.

Hoseok kissed him. Still in the habit of doing all Hoseok wished him to do, Kihyun leaned in and kissed back. The kiss spanned three months worth of separation.

With a quiet sigh, Kihyun opened his mouth. He reached up. He took hold of Hoseok's upper arms and squeezed the muscles there a little harder than he had to. Hoseok took a step forward. He filled Kihyun's mouth.

Other couples were greeting each other after the voyage. The entrance to Vaes Dothrak overflowed with calls and cries and laughter. Kihyun kissed Hoseok without shame. They were in public, but the crowd as a whole shielded them from the eyes of individual people.

Kihyun had his eyes closed.

Breathy, Hoseok murmured against his lips.  _Yer shekh atthirari anni_ . He repeated it between kisses.  _Sun of my life._

 

There was a feast that day that stretched into the night and the day after. They didn't make it there. Not until the next morning.

Stumbling, Hoseok rammed through the swarm of bodies. He led Kihyun home. Sunlight sifted through the walls of the yurt.

Hoseok pressed close to Kihyun the second the flap fell shut behind them. It still trembled in the breeze from time to time to let in a ray of light and a stream of voices and footsteps.

Face cupped in Hoseok's hands, Kihyun looked straight ahead, hoping it would give him enough wrath to end this all. He saw grains of sand in Hoseok's hair as they clung to his scalp. His eyes were underlined with black kohl, and alive, and they bore into Kihyun's. A small patch of skin on Hoseok's forehead was flaking off where the sun had burned it. Kihyun noticed that a layer of dust clung to him everywhere, staining his clothes and body and drying up his sweat.

With a sheepish smile, Hoseok rubbed his face against his sleeve, having realized how messy he looked. He made it worse. He smeared more sand and dust on his cheek and mussed up his eyebrow.

Kihyun reached up. He smoothed Hoseok's eyebrow down. He let his hands open up and soak in the warmth of Hoseok's face and neck. His neck blazed under the touch. It was like the sun itself had lent Hoseok half of its glow again.

Shuddering a little, Hoseok locked their lips. His tongue burned as bad as his neck. Kihyun grew warm. He remembered the tea he had been boiling, and the dictionaries that lay on the low desk, and that he should speak now, or now, or _now_ , but his mouth was full and his hands empty and he grabbed Hoseok to anchor himself again, his fingertips going damp.

Hoseok smelled of horses and bitter coffee travelers usually drank in the desert. He smelled of leather, too, so Kihyun peeled it off him piece by piece. The harness went first, then the vest. He mapped Hoseok's back. The welt that had been there was gone, reduced to a smooth, slim path across his spine. Pausing with his mouth parted, Hoseok once more shuddered, and it was only noticeable because he was so big, so unmovable otherwise.

They looked at each other. It scared Kihyun to see Hoseok's longing and feel it mirrored in his own core.

Soft-spoken, Hoseok used the pause to mumble something. He attempted a smile. He gave an exaggerated sniff to indicate he needed a bath before he touched Kihyun any further. He must have smelled his own sweat. Suddenly timid, Hoseok pressed what he thought would be the last kiss on the heart-shaped wave of Kihyun's upper lip and tried to let go.

Terror clogged Kihyun's throat. A rush of windswept golden specks ran through his nerves and led his movements. He held Hoseok in place.

Once they stopped kissing, there would be silence; and once there was silence, Kihyun would have to break it.

He still had no idea how.

So Kihyun tasted Hoseok deeper, fiercer, to protect him from himself. There were moments in which silence was golden and Kihyun decided this was one of them. His tongue wouldn't speak. Kihyun thanked all gods who reigned above and below that this was the only way Hoseok knew him: mute. It would make his blissful ignorance last a little longer.

Kihyun had a bitter heart, but he didn't have the heart to be bitter. To turn Hoseok bitter with him.

Not straight away.

Hoseok had only just arrived. Even the worst enemy wouldn't strike him now that he thought he was somewhere safe – in the safest place on earth, with someone who had sworn to stay.

He had saved Kihyun. In the most harmful way. In a way he had considered the best. Whatever the result, the intention had been pure. Kihyun had to return the favour somehow. He had to soften the blow. He had thought that unloading everything on Hoseok first thing upon his arrival would be the kindest thing to do, similar to sealing a gaping wound with a blazing iron rod in one go. But standing face to face with him, Kihyun had to reconsider.

There was no painless way to do it. He knew that. Fuck, he _felt_ it. He felt like storing the pain in advance, holding it for Hoseok so the other man could live a couple more hours painfree, or a couple more days.

Kihyun shook. It crushed his chest so bad he kept breaking the kiss to breathe. It was tempting, to just tear away and say it, say it all, spit out all his spite. Only he found his mouth had filled with sorrow, not venom.

He let out a sound too similar to a moan for Hoseok to notice anything.

What was one more day of this in comparison to seven months? He could pay this price.

A curious hand cupped him and found his full cock. Kihyun sucked in a gust of warm air.

He could make it good before he made it hurt.

He could.

He had to.

Fumbling, Kihyun unfastened his belt. He did the same with the string that held Hoseok's breeches in place. They stepped out of their trousers. Hoseok's dick had swelled – it had brushed against Kihyun's navel once or twice already, he could swear it – and the tender tip reddened as Kihyun ran two fingers over it.

Hoseok stood a little tighter. He pushed his hips forward to glean more out of the contact. The muscles in his legs and buttocks clenched. He resembled those proud statues above the gates and Kihyun wasn't sure why Hoseok had chosen to call _him_ his small stallion, of all things, and whether he saw Kihyun just as proud and out of reach.

That string of thoughts snapped as Hoseok slid his hands under Kihyun's tunic. Roaming the trim, sharp lines of Kihyun's body, he pushed the fabric up and up and took it off in one fluid motion.

Kihyun glanced down. He looked different now. A tad tanner. His posture was better from frequent shooting and occasional horse riding. He looked less like a boy and more like a man. Not a Dothraki, but close.

A warm hand found the dark trail that went down his navel. Kihyun hunched forward, gasping. He put his forehead on Hoseok's shoulder and felt a kiss behind his ear. A whisper.

Hoseok called him _his_.

Kihyun grasped him, arms and sides and back. He spread Hoseok's ass a little as he pulled at him, guiding him towards the bed.

One of them tripped over a pile of furs and they fell to their knees. Hoseok let out a short-lived laugh at that until he got serious again, too serious, his softly bruised lips opening. Kihyun took them. Bruised them some more. Roamed Hoseok's travel-worn body to rediscover it; the tautness of his stomach, the mole by his belly button. The way he arched when Kihyun kneaded the small of his back and continued further down to squeeze his hand between Hoseok's ass cheeks, two fingers outstretched to nuzzle the rim.

“ _Alikh_ ,” demanded Hoseok quietly.

Kihyun was ready to give it. He reached into a bowl of oil. The servants kept it by the bed heated up and fresh every day in case Kihyun wanted to please himself, which he never did.

He repeated the motion, arms-sides-back, only with wet fingertips. Gasping, Hoseok shuffled his knees apart. He kneeled closer to Kihyun, almost climbing onto his lap. He threw his head back when Kihyun slid two fingers in, just how Hoseok always did it, how he liked it.

Strained from having grown unused to this, Hoseok rasped. His voice cracked in the low light of the yurt. Kihyun recognized a bit of it. _Miss_. Hoseok had missed this. Or he had missed Kihyun. He muttered and muttered, but it was too muffled for Kihyun to grasp. Hoseok was a talker, but he had learned to tone himself down to Kihyun's level, so he whispered and talked with his hands.

It wouldn't hurt to murmur something back, Kihyun thought, something in Myrish, just to reassure Hoseok. To turn him on, even. Talking usually made Hoseok act quicker, pull harder. He always came the best when they got a little rough. Kihyun wanted to give him the best today.

Part of him knew he was preparing Hoseok for what was about to come.

He eased his fingers out of Hoseok.

“Lie down,” he said. He pushed at his chest to make him understand.

Hoseok ground against him before he listened. Hands trembling, Kihyun reached into the bowl again and spread oil all over his girth.

When he looked up, he saw that Hoseok was lying face-down. It didn't arouse Kihyun like on some other nights when it would give him the illusion of power only to leave him emptier afterwards. All he could think about was what Jooheon had said.

He clutched Hoseok's hips. Obedient, Hoseok put them up.

Kihyun started back. He had no idea how come he had never thought it odd, this routine. This faceless fucking. It felt wrong now that Kihyun was a person again.

He hesitated for too long. Hoseok moved to peer at him.

“Take me,” said Hoseok in Myrish.

“Look at my face,” said Kihyun in Dothraki.

They stared.

Hoseok was the first one to collect himself. He fully propped himself on his hands and knees. Turning his head slightly to the side, he laid his chin on his shoulder so he could gaze back at Kihyun easier.

“ _Vo_ ,” said Kihyun. _No_. “You will look at my face the whole time.”

He wasn't sure the sentence was correct. It could have been ridiculously wrong, and Kihyun waited to read Hoseok's reaction, but there was almost none. Hoseok didn't laugh. He grasped at the furs underneath him clumsily. He looked down and up.

The sight uprooted Kihyun one last time. Of course Hoseok didn't know. Kihyun hadn't shown him.

They had a routine. A chore.

A wall that shielded Kihyun from feeling human when he wasn't.

But he was a human being now, or he was trying to be, and humans didn't belong between walls. They didn't belong in cages, whether they were enforced or self-imposed. Kihyun put one arm around Hoseok's waist in a sort of hug.

They deserved a world without walls.

Kihyun guided Hoseok down and laid him on his back. With a chuckle, Hoseok rolled onto his side and escaped Kihyun's slippery grasp. He flopped onto his belly because he was used to being taken from behind. Patiently, Kihyun dragged him back by the hip bone. Hoseok laughed some more. He thought it funny how Kihyun's oiled hands slipped, unable to ground him. Kihyun clucked his tongue when he saw Hoseok was about to roll over again. The sound carried clear, clearer than the hum of the city from outside. It stilled Hoseok. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question which was soon answered. Kihyun settled on top of him.

For a second, Hoseok frowned.

The next second, it dawned on him what Kihyun was about to do. His eyebrows sloped upwards even higher. He was sweet-faced when he did that. They gripped each other awkwardly.

There was a brief break – a shared look which had Kihyun thinking he might be making it worse rather than sweeter – and his pulse sped up. Mumbling, Hoseok brought him down chest to chest. He sank his blunt nails into Kihyun's back.

“Take me,” Hoseok repeated, wavering under Kihyun's gaze.

Kihyun didn't waver.

He angled his hips and eased into Hoseok. He choked out a small “fuck.”

Hoseok had tightened without him.

He felt his heartbeat all the way down in his cock. He had to wait for a minute. He hadn't considered he might come too soon after being untouched for a quarter of a year and make this sloppy instead of good. He tried to steady his breathing.

“Pain?” asked Kihyun.

An absent half-smile on his lips, Hoseok whispered: “ _Ne_.”

 _No_.

Kihyun groaned a little.

He was right. It was quick. Hoseok took him in, took him whole. He lifted his legs because of some kind of deeply buried instinct so Kihyun could thrust into him easier, better. He had never seemed stronger to Kihyun than now, their faces only a kiss apart and Hoseok's body spasming under him. He had the same ink-black purpose in his eyes as when he fought in the pit, and his upper lip curled a little with each little rasp and grunt, and Kihyun was barely able to hold his thick thighs to his chest as he fucked into him. It was too much. _Too_ good.

Even in this, Kihyun couldn't give back properly.

“Coming,” he uttered through gritted teeth.

“Already there,” said Hoseok, breathless, and shattered Kihyun in a grasp that could break bigger men than he was.

He took it. He ground into Hoseok quicker for a while, and then slow, and then he stilled. It was suddenly dark. Kihyun throbbed inside him. Hoseok throbbed around him. He pulled out with a whimper.

Hoseok smelled nicer when Kihyun burrowed his face in the crook of his neck, just of sweat.

Everything was sticky when they parted. Kihyun tried to get up, but couldn't. He was boneless. Chuckling, Hoseok held him down. He outlined the thin dark trail leading to Kihyun's groin, going against the grain. Then down. He cupped Kihyun's softening dick and pushed it to the side so he could kiss his way all over his navel. When Hoseok got enough, he lifted himself up, a satisfied beam bringing forth the softer, rounder side of his features.

He beamed even harder as he settled atop Kihyun, weighting the smaller man down with his bulk. He gave a grin. Kihyun had to put his thighs apart for Hoseok to fit there.

“That's right,” he said tiredly. He spoke in his mother tongue. He brushed a bit of dust off Hoseok's brow bone. “This is how you should do it.”

Hoseok didn't understand him, but he looked at Kihyun's lips. He waited to hear his voice.

After all of this, Kihyun had even less mind to talk, though. He lay under Hoseok without a single stir.

The yurt was filled with shadow since the last veil of low orange light had gone. The sun slept.

Hoseok began to speak. Careful at first, checking if Kihyun could understand him. Kihyun pretended he didn't. He didn't need to pretend too hard because a lot of the Dothraki words remained lost to him. But he understood one.

Kihyun used to be grateful for the language barrier between them in moments like these: the two of them calming down after a round or two in a dishevelled bed and Hoseok's chatter tainting the aftermath. It would be Kihyun's time to escape. Escape from belonging to Hoseok. A chance not to respond to him the way his body usually would. His silence would be a safety net.

It was ridiculous. Kihyun had deemed himself caged, but when Hoseok had opened the door for him, all Kihyun had done was fly into a net of his own making.

Hoseok got bolder when he saw how spent and small Kihyun lay there, utterly quiet. He was sure he was alone in his little world. He rambled as he roamed Kihyun's ribs and collarbones, both with his hands and mouth.

All the while, the word _love_ resurfaced from time to time, buried in a dune of shyer and more ordinary words. This was Hoseok. He walked around naked, he talked naked. Always laid everything out in the open.

And Kihyun had still managed to miss it.

How is this fair, thought Kihyun, that a feeling like that should find me in a place like this.

He dozed off while Hoseok was washing up. A call woke him up hours later. Darkness sat heavy on his eyelids as he opened them. He heard Hoseok's snore and sensed his heat behind his back. Another call rumbled through the night, accompanied by laughter. People were still celebrating.

Hoseok stirred behind him. Nuzzling closer, he put his knees behind Kihyun's and pushed. Kihyun's legs went up, towards his stomach. A tiny peck landed on his shoulder. With a hum, Hoseok, folded them both into a tight knot, hugged Kihyun tighter and snored into his ear.

Kihyun fell back asleep.

 

He rose early. Despite that, Hoseok was already up. Naked, smelling of herbs, and sorting through trinkets he had brought from his travels. Kihyun stiffly lifted himself up and blinked. Pallid dawn poured inside the room and hurt his eyes.

Fresh air trickled in underneath the lifted flap. Kihyun shivered.

Hoseok sat by a small shiny furnace. Fire crackled in it. He had his back turned towards the furnace and basked in the warmth the flames gave off, unbothered by the chill of the morning. Kihyun shivered again. He noticed he was still naked too. He wrapped himself in a particularly thick black fur, got up, and went to wash his face. He took a miswak – a twig the Dothraki used for oral hygiene, and brushed his teeth with a drop of paste made of salt and dried iris flowers. Next he smeared kohl around his eyes and oiled his hair to protect himself from the sun.

When he was in the middle of it, Hoseok came to peek at him over the screen. He smiled with his eyes. He watched as Kihyun groomed himself.

On any other day, it would remind Kihyun of how confined he was, how unable to take a single step without Hoseok shadowing and cornering him. Today, he bore with it.

It was possibly one of their last days spent together. Soon, he was destined to have no one again. No one to be happy to see him first thing in the morning.

One more day. One more day, he told himself. Just until the end of the celebration.

Seeing that Kihyun was almost done, Hoseok walked around the screen. He hovered closer. He reached into an ornate ceramic bowl that lay next to the basins. He took a small mint leaf and held it in front of Kihyun's face.

He opened his mouth. Gently, Hoseok slipped the leaf in. Kihyun closed his mouth, briefly catching Hoseok's thumb between his lips. It earned him a chuckle – or more of a giggle. A pale blush seeped into the tips of Hoseok's ears. Kihyun had a suspicion it was partly caused by the cold, so he led Hoseok back to the fire.

They went through the rest of Hoseok's purchases together, Kihyun shedding the fur along the way. There were inks and inkstones, fine carpets, belt buckles, and a set of dyes. Lovely Myrish garments which Kihyun impassively folded and put away, knowing someone else would wear them and that he had no place to be thankful for them even if the Dothraki people actually had a word for _thank you_. Chests that Kihyun didn't dare to open, but which were filled with medicine as it turned out when Hoseok proudly presented their contents to Kihyun and observed his reaction.

Kihyun looked inside. Hoseok had bought several sachets of dusk rose tea for fevers. Right beside them stood two neatly stacked bottles of Myrish fire ointment.

Kihyun looked up. Locking gaze with him, Hoseok smiled. He hefted one flask in his big hand. Then, with the same hand, he motioned to his back over his shoulder.

“It helped me a lot,” he said in timid Myrish.

“Good,” replied Kihyun in Dothraki.

Firelight did wonders to the harsh paleness of Hoseok's skin. He smiled wider, with his whole face.

“You've been learning the tongue of my people.”

“Yes.” Kihyun quietly shut the lid of the chest. “So have you.”

“I –” Hoseok halted and let out a tinkle of laughter. The bell in his ear laughed with him. He hung his head low. “I've been _trying_.”

Kihyun nodded. Good. It was good. The less Hoseok told him, the better. The less Kihyun got to know, the easier it would be.

“I forgot half of what I wanted to tell you,” said Hoseok softly. He slipped into Dothraki. “I want to tell you so much. I want to hear you say so many things. I kept trying to hear your voice, but – But I can wait. You don't have to rush, blood of my blood.”

Kihyun pretended not to understand and returned to his task.

When they were done, they joined the feast. It seemed to Kihyun even livelier and louder than yesterday. Some of the travelers and warriors had left to get a wink of sleep, but more had come back well rested and ready to seize the world, or at least the closest jug of alcohol.

The moment Hoseok set foot in the pyramid where the khal's company sang and ate, his friends flocked around him. He barely took a sip of airag and picked a few dates when the cheery group led him back outside. Hoseok let them march him towards the racecourse. He grinned widely as he shot a glance at Kihyun, who trailed passively behind them. Hurting a little in the sharp outpour of sunlight, Kihyun tried to smile back.

Hoseok's friends goaded him into joining the race. Jooheon was amongst the contestants as well. Kihyun spotted him at the edge of the racecourse, reasoning with his ill-tempered mare as he fiddled with the straps of his saddle.

Even here, people celebrated. Kihyun heard singing and zithers, jokes and insults, and could smell the promise or perhaps threat of a good fight in the air. It no longer alarmed him to see couples go from fierce sparring to even fiercer kissing and vice versa.

Hoseok came out of the race second, defeated only by Gain. Jooheon came third. Gain was just dismounting when the young warrior crossed the finish line. The first thing that welcomed him was her hearty jeering. Blushing, Jooheon barked something back, but Gain hooted harder at that. The corners of Kihyun's mouth quivered. He didn't have to understand the exchange to be amused at Jooheon's expense. The boy was simply irresistible to tease when he got sulky.

A wandering hand ran over his hip. Kihyun collected himself and turned to face Hoseok, noting his expectantly raised eyebrows.

“You did well,” slipped past his lips.

Hoseok's eyes widened, but Kihyun knew it was the right thing to say. It pleased Hoseok so much that he was willing to compete some more when his friends suggested it.

The next stop was the shooting range. The site wasn't as crowded, though no less alive. A dense crowd crawled alongside the low wall that ran around the range. People were yelling and betting on potential winners. Servants trailed around with trays full of smoked horse meat and hard cheese and sugar-coated nuts. Kihyun decided to eat something, but he felt a nudge between his shoulder blades first. Before he knew it, he was inside the shooting range.

He scowled at Jooheon, whose push had forced him in.

The scowl didn't work. Jooheon ushered him in and Kihyun felt like burning under Hoseok's acquaintances' scrutiny. He might be dressed as a Dothraki, but everyone and their horse knew he wasn't. This wasn't his place. He should watch from a distance and wait for Hoseok to be done with his boyish games.

But the stares bothered him more than they intimidated him.

Kihyun briefly touched the belt that secured his tunic. He wiped his palms. He set off towards the firing line.

He joined the rest of the contestants.

A servant came with a bow and a basket full of arrows. Kihyun thanked her without words, nodding.

A pair of strong arms encircled him from behind. Murmuring, Hoseok pulled at him. Kihyun didn't buckle.

“Kihyun,” coaxed Hoseok.

That was when Jooheon called to Hoseok. Unwilling to let go, Hoseok once more muttered something, attempting to steer Kihyun away from the firing lane. It was pointless. Kihyun stood so rigid that his own will could splinter his bones before someone moved him.

His guts grew cold.

He still had no value in Hoseok's eyes, had he.

Something small and seething within him begged to earn that value, to become priceless before he walked away. He inhaled.

Hoseok came out of this competition second, too.

Kihyun was calm when he gave the arrow-ridden target in front of him a critical once-over. He was calm when he let his bow-wielding arm drop. He was the calmest when he glanced sideways to find Hoseok gaping.

Deadpan, Kihyun checked Hoseok's target. Hoseok's posture. Hoseok's face.

He winked.

Hoseok chuckled, the sound sudden and surprising them both, but nothing was greater than the surprise etched in his features. He wasn't used to Kihyun being cocky with him. He wasn't exactly used to Kihyun being anything at all.

Brightening, Hoseok put the bow down. The very next moment, he was gripping Kihyun's waist and crushing him close, their hips touching but their faces apart.

Unsure what to do and say when the crowd was watching, Kihyun decided to stay cocky.

“You did well,” he said again.

Hoseok appreciated the jab. When his laughter died down, he pierced Kihyun with a searching stare. A dark ripple passed over his brow and he looked askance and began to seek for someone in the thickening throng. Jooheon, most likely. Kihyun swallowed what felt like crushed ice. He took Hoseok's face and turned it back.

No, Kihyun thought, boring into Hoseok. It's not Jooheon's doing. It's all me.

A stocky warrior of forty or fifty came forth and put a wreath over Kihyun's head. He was forced to let go of Hoseok so the man could adjust the thing around his neck. Kihyun inspected the wreath. Gain had won a similar one, but hers had copper bells woven into it. His had feathers. They shone iridescent in the sun, bleeding blue-green.

Jooheon grabbed him by the wrist and put his hand up. Kihyun had half a mind to tear away, but the Dothraki roared to honour his victory.

Their last stop was the fighting pit.

They met Hyunwoo and his bloodriders at the gates. If Kihyun had thought the racecourse and shooting range noisy, the pit was positively deafening today. Hordes of men and women hung from circular stepped tribunes in clusters like grapes from a vine. Kihyun fell back into Hoseok's shadow. He did so gladly.

The now numerous group got seated on a shaded platform that towered above the masses. They slumped over ottomans and cushions. Hyunwoo took up one whole low chair with his impressive build, but shifted as soon as Bora and the girls approached him. The present khaleesi by his side and the future khaleesi on his lap, Hyunwoo glanced down and gave a command for the fights to start.

There were no rules. Everyone who deemed themselves brave enough could still join in, and sure enough, Jooheon used that opportunity to challenge Gain. She snorted at him. He brooded. She took off her wreath and put it on Hyunwoo's older daughter, who could comfortably wear it around her waist; which she did, giggling.

Soon more warriors followed them, and Bora, and at last Hoseok cracked too. Kihyun grew tense as Hoseok got up.

Don't, Kihyun sent a silent message to him, don't go. Don't challenge the khal. No one would dare to contest his claim even if you stopped losing to him. You've taken care of that already.

But the message remained unheard, ricocheting off Hoseok's broad back. Hoseok picked up a small wooden shield and descended the stairs down to the arena.

Kihyun sat bolt upright to see. The day was getting hotter. He took off his wreath after a while, its weight stifling him along with the dry, dusty air. He ate a few slices of roasted yak meat to settle his stomach and let Jooheon pour him a bowl of salted tea. All it did was plant Kihyun in his seat heavier. Warmth pooled in his armpits and he fidgeted squeamishly.

Fights like these always lasted for hours. Kihyun waited them out one by one.

Jooheon came from the pit with a pitiful expression and sand in his hair when it was time to serve an early dinner.

The sun melted above the eastern crests and into the peaks of the highest mountains. Weary but grinning, Hoseok stood amongst the last three fighters. The other two exchanged a glance and charged at Hoseok at the same time. He dodged the first one and crushed the other one's jaw, using the shield to lend force to the strike. The opponents wavered. One went down.

The remaining man let out an ear-splitting shriek. It didn't sound like any of the local dialects. Standing up, Kihyun scanned the man up and down more intently. It was possible he was a desert nomad, one of the many who had no roof over their head and no folk to call their own and that he had joined the travelling khalasar on the way to Vaes Dothrak. If it was so, the man had no allegiance to Hoseok or the khal.

Kihyun descended the stairs so quickly he felt his stomach grow light and tight. He briefly paused by the railing so as not to miss anything that was going on in the arena. Hoseok and the other fighter still stood far apart. Kihyun marched on. He heard drumming as he neared the pit, but he saw no drums. Bodies shielded his vision. He elbowed his way towards the very edge of the field where Hoseok and his opponent circled each other closer. Just then, the foreign warrior broke through Hoseok's defense and delivered two punches straight in the middle of his chest. Groaning, Hoseok stumbled backwards.

The ribs.

The horse.

Pain. Hoseok knew that word.

Within seconds, Hoseok was back on his feet and more sombre than before. He hung his head as he prepared himself to ram forward. The stare he pierced his rival with could reverse rivers. It wasn't really wrath in his eyes, or pride, or bloodlust. It was pure effort. He inhaled in short gusts and held his breath to ease the pain in his rib cage, his chest rising and falling in quick rasps. The corner of his mouth was torn.

Kihyun sleepwalked into the ring. He heard yelling and he knew he was the target of it. There were no rules to the fight – but nobody should join this late in the game. Nobody should go unarmed. His heart halved into two hummingbirds that rose to beat their weak wings in his ears. He walked without a weapon and without reason.

Something cracked. Hoseok threw away his shield and went after the other man empty-handed. A metal-tipped strand of a whip sliced the air, but the man missed – and in another heartbeat Hoseok brought him down with a single blow. He used his body to hold the resisting rival down, forcing his face against the sizzling stone and grit.

The tribunes thundered.

Kihyun slowed, hastened, and slowed again.

Hoseok lifted his head. He was about to grin at the shouting crowd when he saw Kihyun's small figure standing frozen to the spot not too far away.

The darkness Kihyun was used to seeing in Hoseok's eyes after he'd won returned, blazing into him like a black sun. Giving one last warning nudge to the man beneath him, Hoseok smiled, his mind already elsewhere. He sprung to his feet.

Kihyun sped up to meet him halfway.

His thoughts rushed loud. Hoseok cradled his face. His hands were dusty. When he grazed Kihyun's jawline, the roughness of his fingertips clashed with his gentle touch.

Kihyun grabbed him. And spoke up in Dothraki.

“Don't challenge the khal today.”

The whisper stilled them a breath away from a kiss. Kihyun felt his throat tighten.

“Don't do it,” he said, running a thumb over Hoseok's knuckles. His gaze flitted up.

“I won't,” mouthed Hoseok.

“Good.” Kihyun permitted himself a smile, though it turned out to be more of a quiver of the lips. “You did well.”

Hoseok pressed against him with a groan. He murmured – something about wishes and fucking and Kihyun feared for a moment that Hoseok wished to be fucked right then and there; but if he did, he didn't act on it. Leaning in, Hoseok licked the corner of his mouth and realized it was split. He pulled away so as not to force Kihyun to taste blood.

His gait lumbering, Hoseok stepped to the side. Kihyun kept a hand on Hoseok's belt even as he lifted his arms, the low-pitched cheers of the Dothraki washing over him. They were celebrating his victory, but there was also an undercurrent of expectation in the way they roared. The assembled onlookers knew Hoseok and his ways well; they hadn't grown bored yet because they were ready for another row.

They would not get it.

Nerve after nerve unravelled within Kihyun. His veins pulsed slower.

A black kite called above the pit.

Kihyun let Hoseok have his moment. He stepped aside as well to allow more room for Hoseok so he could turn to all sides and wave at the masses. His palms glinted with sweat and sand stuck to them, the grains golden.

Why does he always have to stand in the sun, thought Kihyun. It scorches.

Kihyun wouldn't look away regardless, if it wasn't for the tension that suddenly crept up the nape of his neck. He whirled around. Arid breeze seeped through his clothes. Shadows of the tribunes had grown longer. His own shadow snaked warped and thin across the ground and ended at the defeated warrior's feet. Blood and dust caking his bared teeth, the man had sprung back up and faced Kihyun from barely ten paces away. He didn't see Kihyun at all, though. Rising his dark, spotty hand, the warrior sought after something else until he zeroed in on Hoseok. The knotted whip the warrior was wielding rushed forth.

In his head, Kihyun lurched away from the strike.

That was why he didn't understand the pain. He staggered back and clutched his face. It was numb. It wasn't his face. He couldn't see, but the thing he was touching was wet, and his hands were wet, and his face felt like two faces. His chest felt like two chests.

Sounds overpowered him. Split his head.

He heaved. The sounds were just too strong. He could not bear them.

Saliva thickened in his mouth. His tongue tasted of bile and copper. He was walking, but he didn't know why and where. He must have blacked out for a few seconds because when he was able to recognize voices and colours again, he was sitting on the low wall on the edge of the pit and Jooheon was holding him from behind. The grip grew stronger as someone poured alcohol down Kihyun's face and under his tunic. Kihyun didn't scream, but he vomited again.

The same person who had cleaned him forced Kihyun's mouth open. She made him rinse with tea and spit out.

He fell slack against Jooheon's torso, shaking in the vice-like embrace and unable to make sense of anything the young warrior mouthed in his ear. It all turned into the swish of the Summer Sea in Kihyun's mind.

He thought he recognized Hoseok's face right in front of his, but he wasn't sure.

He hoped not.

He didn't want to be seen.

Thickening, the commotion by the pit shielded Kihyun from sunlight and pushed Hoseok away. Voices rose like smoke around him. He registered the khal's order.

Hoseok killed his twentieth trophy that day.

In retrospect, Kihyun was glad he didn't have to witness it. The sound of it was enough.

More alcohol ran down his wound and ate away at the exposed flesh. The searing sensation blinded him. It had never burned this bad, to be whipped. Not even the very first time when it had been intended to break his pride.

“Shh,” muttered Jooheon. “It's alright. It's alright. Can you walk, brother?”

Kihyun thought he could, so he nodded.

He didn't remember the way. When he came to it, Jooheon was holding him up and shouldering his way inside the yurt. Once in, he laid Kihyun down. Assessing the damage with a sympathetic hiss, Jooheon began to undress him from the waist up. He unclasped Kihyun's belt and took off his tunic. The fabric was torn up at the front. The alcohol that had been poured on it had thinned down the bloodstains. There was more blood than an ordinary horse or bull whip would cause.

Kihyun had hardly any time to think about the damage done to his chest. All he felt was his face. He felt that he didn't feel it. It sat foreign on his skull.

“Do I still have both eyes?” he asked.

 


	4. Silver

“Do I still have both eyes?” Kihyun asked.

Jooheon shrank back.

“Of course you do, silly.”

“I can't see properly.”

“It's because of the blood. The servants are boiling water. They'll be here before you know it. Don't worry. We'll clean you up in a bit.” He leaned down and put a folded up fur under Kihyun's head. “Don't worry,” he said, softer. “You're in one piece.”

Just as Jooheon eased his head back down, he saw Hoseok walk in. His hands were eerily clean, unless Kihyun counted the dirt that stuck to them. He knew why there was no blood. He had heard the snap of the foreign warrior's neck.

Heavy and slow, Hoseok walked up to them. He looked older, but smaller. He kneeled beside Kihyun and gazed down at him.

Kihyun turned away.

The two Dothraki went silent for a moment. They started talking in hushed tones, the exchange fast and flowing even faster the more they said to each other.

With a push, Jooheon ushered Hoseok towards the wooden screen, where he thoroughly scrubbed his hands, judging from the sloshing and splashing. He was back by Kihyun's side in a flash, everything besides his hands still soiled. Without much thought, Hoseok made a move to touch Kihyun, but realized he couldn't. He wavered. He settled for squeezing Kihyun's shoulder instead.

“Sun of my life,” said Hoseok in a voiceless whisper. He went on, quiet but urgent, reassuring Kihyun that he would be alright soon and pleading with him to stay brave. At least that was what Kihyun imagined Hoseok was saying. There was nothing _else_ to say, and Kihyun zoned Hoseok's voice out and listened for any nearing footsteps.

Two servants rushed in. They carried a basin and a handful of washcloths. One of them lit up a lantern and set it next to Kihyun. Shuffling each towards the opposite end of the bed, Jooheon and Hoseok made room for the servants, though the distance didn't stop them from observing everything intently.

Kihyun hadn't known until then that pure warm water could sting so strongly.

After having taken its sweet sweet time to let Kihyun know it was even there, the slash that ran over his breast started to ache. He writhed, but did his best to stay motionless. It wasn't just to make the servants' task easier. He contained himself so Jooheon and Hoseok wouldn't grow even more restless. There was no need for any more lives to be ended today, and Hoseok seemed especially on edge watching the couple of servants work.

Clenching his jaw and fists, Kihyun stared at the canvas ceiling. There was nothing interesting there. He saw little more than shadows. The nothingness calmed him.

Bit by bit, the servants cleaned his wounds. They had to stitch the worst parts of the gash which gaped open and ran too deep, one above Kihyun's brow bone and another one on his cheekbone.

Although he was half numb, he was also half on fire. It was taking forever. Hardening himself to the core, Kihyun endured the procedure without a drop of alcohol because, frankly, he didn't reckon he needed to show any more cowardice. He had already thrown up twice from shock. If there was one thing the Dothraki scoffed at, it was weakness.

Shapes and shades stood out sharper when he lay there washed and dried and sewn up as a pretty needlework. Jooheon had told him the truth. He still had both eyes. He assumed the rest was intact as well. Just split and gory.

The servants were finished. They bowed to him, Hoseok, and Jooheon, and got up to leave. Hoseok immediately seized a spot beside Kihyun. He was holding a jar and popped it open. The smell of mint and aloe clogged Kihyun's nose.

“ _Vo, vo_ ,” he said quickly.

He reached out to still Hoseok in place. Grabbed his wrist. Pushed it away. He drew in a strenuous breath. That good for nothing salve the Dothraki relied on hurt more than it healed.

“No fear,” coerced Hoseok in choppy Myrish. He reached into the jar.

“ _Vo_ ,” repeated Kihyun more resolutely. He glanced at Jooheon for help.

The worried look the man was sporting told Kihyun he would get none from him. Returning his attention to Hoseok, Kihyun toyed with the idea of grappling with him. Even if he had no chance of winning, he would at least get the message across.

Determined, he swatted at Hoseok.

Hoseok gaped.

“Please,” he urged. He was too afraid to use force. “Please, Kihyun.”

Still Kihyun persevered, gathering every last shred of energy he had left. Each attempt to fend Hoseok off brought with it a wave of nausea and dizziness. His wounds were salt and flames.

He was at his wit's end. Hoseok fought back, however gently.

“No,” asserted Kihyun – in Valyrian. “I've seen what this thing does, and it's precisely nothing. Let me get up. I will use the Myrish medicine, or nothing.”

Finally, Hoseok ceased to struggle back.

The victory was bitter.

Hoseok stared at Kihyun, his intentions all but forgotten. Kihyun, for that matter, would sooner let Hoseok spread that awful salve over and inside his wounds with a rusty saber than face him. Seconds stretched. Strained, Kihyun lifted himself up, leaning on one elbow. His body listened to him, but his head weighed him down. He was many-faced again, and torn, and so fucking heavy.

One slash. One. It took one strike and his skin turned to a molten metal plate which hugged his bones and melted them to ashes.

He truly didn't belong here, did he.

“Lie down,” said Hoseok as he splayed his fingers over Kihyun's shoulder. “I'll do it.”

He hadn't heard Hoseok speak Valyrian for ages.

Seven whole months.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. How Hoseok was supposed to find out.

At the back of his mind, Kihyun had convinced himself Hoseok didn't _need_ to find out; not this part. He had studied Dothraki night by night to avoid this. He had been willing to break his tongue and teeth over the gritty language of the horselords to avoid this.

He was staying here longer than he should – all to avoid this.

The stricken expression.

And the half-expression that followed. Hoseok picked himself up, vacant in the face, and went over to the set of chests he had brought from his travels. He unlocked one. He handed a sachet of dusk rose tea to Jooheon, wordlessly asking him to boil it. Uncorking a bottle of Myrish fire ointment, Hoseok returned to Kihyun, kneeled, and said softly in Valyrian:

“Give me your hand.”

“Why?”

“So you have something to hold on to if it hurts.”

The medicine wasn't called Myrish fire for no reason. Reluctantly, Kihyun locked fingers with him. His knuckles went white.

Time to pay.

Tidal waves surged up his closed throat and fought to force out yells that Kihyun shakily suppressed, one by one. He was sweating. His tongue bled. Once again, the tang of copper sat on the roof of his mouth and clotted his taste buds. When Hoseok was done with him, Jooheon helped Kihyun wash the aftertaste away with dusk rose tea. Panting, Kihyun spat out the first mouthful and then, docile, he drank the rest. The tea tasted of earth and death, but nothing worked better to prevent fever.

All the while, Kihyun clutched Hoseok's fingers, and it seemed that his only goal in life was to crush them to dust. Hoseok gripped him back, his own hand sweaty but soothing. He pressed a close-lipped kiss on Kihyun's temple.

“I'll give you something so you can sleep through it,” he murmured.

“No. Please, don't.” As unwilling as a horse that hadn't been broken yet, Kihyun let go of him, one finger at a time. “I don't need it.”

“You do. You need rest,” compelled Hoseok.

“ _Vo_.”

“Brother,” Jooheon joined in. He stroked Kihyun's tensed up arm once and kept his hand clasped around the lean muscle.

Though it pierced the flesh in his face, Kihyun shook his head.

“I have to stay awake.” He didn't look at Hoseok. “I have to talk to you.”

“It can wait,” said Hoseok in a controlled voice. “I told you I will wait –”

“No.”

The last “no” was the quietest so far.

He heard rather than saw Jooheon stir in his seat and tentatively get up, awaiting Hoseok's dismissal. An instant later, they were alone.

The light in the lantern flickered. Now that Kihyun thought about it, he realized it was a bit drafty this evening. He concentrated on the steady burn which seeped bone-deep into his brow. He wondered without any exaggeration whether the whip had actually exposed the bone. He was little more than a piece of mended meat now, and he sure didn't feel any different than that.

He lay there like a slab of lamb and stared upwards. Stared towards the starlit sky he couldn't see, but imagined. Stared anywhere but at Hoseok.

Another, smaller kiss grazed his temple. It sent a shiver through him. It was almost enough to let him forget about the headache.

Hoseok eased himself on his back beside Kihyun. He linked their hands as he turned towards the ceiling, mirroring Kihyun's interest in the old, faded canvas cloth.

“I had hoped I would never have to see you flogged again,” said Hoseok at last.

The remark came out of nowhere. Kihyun's skin grew hotter. A sheen of sweat and salve would stick to him if he tried to touch it.

“Again?”

Hoseok tensed next to him.

“Yes.”

“You've seen me get whipped before?”

“Once.”

Swallowing the obvious _whens_ and _wheres_ , Kihyun figured out the answer himself. “In Pentos.”

“Yes. It was – it was all the way back, when I thought we would never be together. You were with lord Chae and you were both dressed in purple and it looked like you were inseparable. You accompanied him everywhere. I didn't know you weren't a free man back then.”

“What happened?” asked Kihyun as if he was listening to someone else's story, a made up story about a man he used to know.

“You stepped in when you saw a group of market guards punishing a beggar nun for stealing. You left your master and went over and – and I was so dumbstruck when I saw the market guard approach you that I didn't even do anything. It would have never occurred to me that the man had the right to strike you. I was so sure that your husband – your – your lord must interfere at any minute that I just... watched,” he finished.

Kihyun sighed.

“There's nothing you could have done.”

“I could have cut the man's hand off,” Hoseok offered darkly.

“I'm glad you didn't. You would have made it worse. I would have gotten the beating a little bit later, from someone else, and it would have hurt more.”

Exhaling sharply, Hoseok scooted in place.

“Is that how it works in the West?”

“I'd say that's how it works everywhere.”

“I wouldn't have been punished instead of you if I had defended you?”

“No. It's always the slave.”

“Gods be good.”

“It doesn't matter. We met when I had already gone through the worst. The flogging you're talking about, it was nothing.” Kihyun grimaced at himself. It pulled at the fresh stitches and he trembled. “It doesn't matter,” he repeated, weaker.

“But it does. _It does_. If I had known sooner,” said Hoseok, mouthing those words against Kihyun's naked shoulder, “I wouldn't have just... I wouldn't have just looked at you. I would have tried to –”

“Save me?”

“I – no. Yes. _Protect_ you.”

The tiniest drop of venom sat at the tip of Kihyun's tongue, plump like a pearl and ready to burst. Protect him. Hoseok's idea of protection had almost ruined Kihyun.

It was half ownership, half love. Kihyun wasn't even sure to what degree he could blame Hoseok for treating him in such patronizing manner, seeing that _he_ had been the one to reduce himself into a dumb doll. He had cut Hoseok's attempts to learn more, to love better.

He swallowed the venom.

There were a lot of things that Kihyun had promised himself to tell Hoseok. The truth, for one. Hoseok deserved the truth.

But there were two truths. The one Kihyun used to know and the one he knew now.

So he said something he hadn't memorized from lifeless books. He said it in Myrish.

“Thank you.”

It was quiet.

Tenderly, Hoseok drew a circle over Kihyun's palm, smearing the dampness that had collected there.

“Don't thank me. I couldn't protect you in the end,” whispered Hoseok. He pressed closer. He immediately retreated, either because he was worried about Kihyun's wounds or some other reason. “I couldn't do anything when I was a stranger and I still can't do anything even when we belong to each other. I should be able to make your life better. You chose me despite the way I look and you entrusted yourself to me, and I – I failed you even as your husband.”

Husband. How familiar it sounded in Dothraki nowadays, and how harsh in Valyrian. No matter the language, it still overpowered Kihyun to be addressed as such. He was too flustered to speak.

He had no right to claim that title.

He had no right to claim the rest, either.

Most of all, Kihyun wasn't Hoseok's sun. How could the sun be cold? How could the sun turn its burnt-out side to someone who yearned for warmth?

“Kihyun, why did you do it?”

Startled, he glanced to the side to find that Hoseok was boring into him.

“Do what?” he asked, guarded.

“Stand in front of me.”

“I just did.”

“Did you do it because you think I'm not enough?”

Edging up until he was leaning on his elbow, Hoseok studied Kihyun's expression. Searched in it. He kept at it although he couldn't hold Kihyun's gaze properly. Kihyun sensed himself be stripped under the scrutiny, as bare as the nerves in his throbbing gashes.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because you've seen me defeated.”

“So? You've seen me enslaved.”

Hoseok winced.

“You told me not to fight Hyunwoo,” he pointed out with less resolve. “I thought maybe... Maybe I'm not as strong as I need to be to keep you safe. You're used to different men. Noble men. Braver –”

“I didn't tell you not to fight because you can't win. I know how strong you are. I've felt it.”

Even in the dim light, Kihyun had no chance to miss the flush spreading over Hoseok's neck. He carried on.

“But you don't want to win. You challenge your brother and you publicly lose to him so you can secure his position.” Glazed over, Kihyun's eyes fell where Hoseok was leaning on the ground, fisting the furs. He regretted letting go of his hand. It looked helpless. “That's braver than winning.”

“Why...” Hoseok swallowed. “Why did you intervene, then? Why did you take the hit instead of me?”

“I suppose I also hoped I wouldn't have to see you flogged again.”

Muttering Kihyun's name, Hoseok once more stopped himself shy of cupping his cheek. This was the second time he did it. His fingers twitched.

Kihyun squeezed them.

“Is it that bad?” asked Kihyun, indicating to the injury.

“It's... swollen.”

He assumed as much.

“Now I'm branded twice.”

As one, they glimpsed at the chain-like tattoo winding around Kihyun's wrist. It always marred his skin the darkest when there was just enough light and shadows to create a contrast.

Hoseok opened his mouth to speak. Kihyun was quicker.

“But I still have both eyes,” he said, wryly victorious.

Giving the smallest scowl, Hoseok sighed.

“You shouldn't have done this.” Hoseok clasped Kihyun's hand in both of his, unfolded it, and brought it to his lips. He kissed the middle of Kihyun's palm. Pausing, he sighed again as his eyelids grew heavy. It looked like a prayer, and Kihyun a dying deity at Hoseok's feet. “Kihyun, I'd rather –”

“I know.”

In this, he could understand Hoseok without words.

Kihyun screwed his eyes shut. He wished to stay impenetrable and voiceless. He would give anything to unsee things, unlearn them, unfeel.

Why dive down deeper when he had to lose everything in the end?

He broke twofold. First because he mourned the life he used to have and then because he mourned the life he would never have. Not here.

He would be betraying the dead.

“Let me bring you something for the pain,” entreated Hoseok in a whisper.

“No.”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“That's who I am.” A small stallion. He scoffed at himself. “It must have been easier to deal with me while I was silent,” he remarked.

He realized too late that the quip brought forward what they had left unspoken until that moment. Kihyun commanded a common language and Hoseok was aware of it now. Looming over them, the need to breach the topic nearly rivalled the fear to do so.

“You speak Valyrian,” said Hoseok, hesitant.

“Yes. I do.”

“Did you... learn it while I was gone?”

“No. I've always known Valyrian. But I've learned some Dothraki.”

“You could speak Valyrian all along?”

“Yes,” Kihyun said faintly.

“Why didn't you –”

They gazed at each other. Hoseok wore that half-expression again, the facade of dark, resting calmness. He had the face of a man who didn't believe he could ever be hurt, not by Kihyun, but who was already hurting on the inside.

“I needed time,” Kihyun found himself saying. He spoke softly; even the oil in the lantern burned louder. “I had to be alone for awhile.”

“Of course,” said Hoseok, his features falling apart. He leaned down to caress Kihyun's hair. “Of course you did. _Of course_. I should have known. Gods, I _did_ know, but I got greedy. I got so greedy when you welcomed me that I let myself believe you were ready. That the travel from Pentos was long enough to heal you.”

Kihyun watched him.

For the first time, he also felt seen.

“It was blind of me, wasn't it?” Hoseok piped up. “I... rushed you, didn't I? I talked to you and expected an answer when you needed –”

Hoseok suddenly halted, like when someone touches a quivering gong and it goes still at once.

“I – every night –” he said dismally.

“Yes. You did that. But not as a master.”

Granted, Kihyun hadn't known. He hadn't been free, not in his mind. To this day, the knowledge that he had been bought bloomed ever-present and rotten on the edge of his thoughts. It teetered there, telling him it would be a fast fall if Hoseok ever decided to dehumanize him, to turn Kihyun into his property.

It hurt to trust him. It hurt, but Kihyun was used to pain.

He sat up, his head athrob.

“Hoseok,” he blurted, “how many slaves do you own?”

Hoseok rushed to hold Kihyun up. He tried to lay him back down, but Kihyun resisted until Hoseok gave up.

“I have six servants,” Hoseok said at last.

“How many of them are slaves?” Kihyun repeated.

“Two.”

“Why are they slaves? Why not regular servants?”

“One of them is serving a punishment,” explained Hoseok. “He has two more years left before his sentence is over. Then he shall be allowed to live as a citizen.”

“And the other one?”

“She was given to me as a gift.”

“Would she be free now if you found her appealing?”

“What?”

“Would she be a free woman if you wanted her?”

It seemed Hoseok would never unfreeze.

Straightening his back upright so he could confront Hoseok face to face, Kihyun pressed on.

“Would I still be a slave if I looked like _this_ the first time you saw me?”

“Like what?” murmured Hoseok, one arm supporting Kihyun around the waist.

“Hideous.”

Hoseok frowned. “I don't see anything hideous. You're still you.”

“But do you see me? Do you see _me_ , or a lost little thing who needs your protection? A bed warmer who is given liberties as long as he wants you back and does as you wish?” His temples began to roar with headache as the rest of his head. “Hoseok, this isn't right. I can't trust this freedom while you still keep slaves. _I_ can't own another person and call myself a human.”

Unmoving like a lotus flower floating in one of the temple pools, Hoseok didn't do anything for a long, long while. Only his eyes changed. He attempted to speak once, twice. Three times. He splayed his fingers over the small of Kihyun's back, and it wasn't to support Kihyun, but to support himself.

He hung his head.

He gave one decisive nod.

Eerie. It was eerie. Hoseok got up, joint by joint, muscle by muscle, the movement strenuous. He walked out of the yurt.

Kihyun started shaking. He crawled towards the furnace, his head and heart hot. A half-empty kettle of dusk rose tea stood by the flames and Kihyun poured himself another cup. He spilled a little. He gobbled the tea down. It was lukewarm.

A sandstorm swept his thoughts.

He must have been delirious to say all of this. And hope. And expect a different reaction.

He grabbed the kettle and poured himself more tea. He was about to down it in one go when Hoseok returned. A black leather collar hung from his grip. Dangled from his middle finger.

Hesitating at the door, Hoseok hefted the collar. He looked at it, then at Kihyun.

Something urged Kihyun to clutch his throat. Waiting, he repressed the shiver in his bones.

“This is hers,” said Hoseok, lifting the collar. He winced. “Was. I took it off. She agreed to stay as your personal servant. I can't free the other one – what he did must be punished – but he is free to go once he serves his sentence.”

Kihyun wobbled to his feet.

Across from him, Hoseok dropped the collar. He took one uncertain step forward.

Kihyun walked the rest of the way.

“I'm so sorry,” muttered Hoseok. A few fine wrinkles appeared on his forehead. Those lines didn't disappear even as Kihyun cradled his face. “I should have _known_. I really made it all worse for you, didn't I.”

“You didn't mean to,” said Kihyun, voiceless. “I should have... talked. To you. Anyone. The girl – she could have been one of us ages ago if I had spoken up, and I –”

He could have had the home he had tried to build for himself in Pentos.

But was Pentos any better? The city had seen him mocked and beaten. He had been a nobody there. Here he had his freedom, even if it was the only thing he owned. Was it really wrong – to stay? Wouldn't it be worse if he returned to the Free Cities, where he had been truly bound and stripped of rights? Where he had been enslaved in the first place?

What would the dead say if they could speak to him?

Kihyun leaned on Hoseok.

“Hoseok,” he whispered, “if you find out that I'm not the person you envisioned...”

“I've already discovered that. I _keep_ discovering that,” Hoseok whispered back. “Every day. I learn new things about you even when you don't speak. It's scary sometimes. I think I would have fallen even harder for you when we first met if I had known you the way I know you now.”

“What if you find something you don't like? What will happen to me?”

“What would happen to you?” Hoseok asked softly.

“You tell me.”

His eyes widened. “You think I...”

Silence.

“But I would never –!”

Silence, silence, silence.

Hoseok's short-lived outrage died down and gave way to devastation.

It was terrific and terrifying both, to see him struggle and lose against the storm within his own body. His arms rippled as he reached up and stopped himself a second away from crushing Kihyun to his chest. Again, the severity of Kihyun's injury discouraged him, like he could crack at the contact.

Hoseok sank to his knees. Murmuring in fervent Dothraki, he leaned on Kihyun's bare stomach and hugged his legs.

The Dothraki folk had no words for regret and forgiveness, just as they had none to express gratitude; but Kihyun didn't need one particular word or phrase to translate what Hoseok was saying. Or the way the nape of his neck sloped down in repentance. Or the reason why he trembled so bad.

Kihyun understood him without language. He was doing it more and more often.

“Get up,” he said, sea froth quiet, and just as fragile. He tugged at Hoseok's hair. “Come on. Get up.”

Leaving a wet little stain where he parted his lips against Kihyun's navel, Hoseok burrowed closer.

“And here I was wondering why you never laugh,” he moaned out. “I'm the reason.”

“No.”

“I _am_ –”

“Get up,” urged Kihyun, hoping that the flinty quality in his tone resembled firmness. “I can't see you like this. I won't. I won't suffer my husband kneeling in the dirt. Ever again.”

Either the statement alone, or the fierceness of it brought them both to a standstill. Kihyun locked himself inside the well-known blackness that came with closing one's eyes, shapes shifting underneath his eyelids. His wounds turned to salt and flames again, but he didn't know why. He pawed at Hoseok's shoulders.

“Get up,” he said, the sound nasal.

Hoseok was slow to listen. The pressure on Kihyun's legs eased little by little. Two too-tightly grasping hands ran up his figure, all the way to his waist where they hesitated and disappeared. Kihyun went after them – fought to gain that contact back. He would go even if he stood at the brink of a chasm. Right now, he would go.

“Kihyun,” Hoseok rasped, “you're only mine until I'm yours. Until you want me. Please, tell me that you know this.”

“I think I need more medicine,” said Kihyun, not looking at him. “It stings.”

A sob broke out of him.

Hoseok gently clasped his face, far enough from the bruises. He tried to do something about the tears, but more ran over his fingers.

“I thought not making you laugh was the worst,” he breathed out, the closeness of it tickling Kihyun's lips. “Please, don't cry. I didn't mean to, I swear. I swear it, Kihyun. I didn't mean to make you cry.”

“You didn't. You made me lighter.”

Still Kihyun wasn't looking – still he clung to the resolve to say _other_ things, the things he had planned to unload on Hoseok as tenderly as he could; things which were losing meaning by the minute. The very ground underneath Kihyun turned into two crested waves that parted to take him under; but he watched the surface close over him and stayed motionless, calm, because he knew the water around him was breathable. He could soar up whenever he chose to. He had it in his power.

He was light.

Whispers wafted through the yurt like a thread of silk, and tore and dissolved into nothingness only to echo even more feeble. The lantern burned on. Hoseok laid Kihyun down. He pressed warmth into Kihyun's shoulders and combed limp strands away from his forehead until he quietened and ceased crying. Kihyun let tiny spasms jolt through him. A cool cloth wiped him dry, and Hoseok reapplied medicine to his wounds, and Kihyun inhaled and exhaled in hiccups for a little longer.

Kihyun fell asleep from exhaustion. As he slept, Hoseok talked to him in three languages; _love, love, love_ in each of them; _athfiezar, love, lásko_.

He was not feverish, but he as well could be.

Sleep sealed his mouth and clotted his thoughts, so although he winced awake four times throughout the night, he had no energy to reply to none of what Hoseok said. He just heard it – heard it all – Hoseok's innermost secrets which nevertheless lay in the open because he knew no other way to handle them, no other place to store them than inside Kihyun.

His chest became a true chest then, with something untouchably delicate locked within.

_I have never loved a master_ .

The salve seared his wounds close overnight. The sliced flesh crusted over, dark and gruesome, the scabs so rough that Kihyun dared to graze them only once. He still had a swelling headache when he woke up for good. He hissed at the discomfort. Something stirred and snored beside him.

A meaty arm prevented him from rolling over.

Kihyun took the arm and held it.

 

There was no way of persuading Hoseok that Kihyun's injury was neither mortal nor excruciatingly painful.

Hoseok was a clumsy physician, and a very possessive one, seeing that even the khal and his family were allowed only a fleeting visit. Hoseok ushered them out once Hyunwoo bowed to Kihyun, showing his gratitude and respect.

The young khaleesi protested with a shriek at being led out. Slipping under Hoseok's arm, she ran back inside the yurt. She insisted that she must sing to her “pretty bloodrider” a song so he would get better sooner.

She was determined. Hoseok, however, did not waver. Granted, he usually caved in to the girl's every wish, but he stood firm this time. The refusal took the tiny khaleesi by surprise and she darkly promised to battle him. Hoseok accepted the threat with a teasing chuckle and tickled the child under the chin.

Kihyun had more visitors than he expected. For one, Hoseok's niece sneaked in every once in a while and brought Kihyun oranges and braided his hair. She also gifted him a wooden sword to fend Hoseok off with, which Kihyun accepted very gravely. Several of Hoseok and Jooheon's friends stopped by as well, Gain amongst them, and presented Kihyun with trinkets and what they claimed was the best airag in the city. Even the temple priestess came to check on him.

Jooheon peeked inside the yurt daily, though he didn't dare to go in. He was too discouraged by Hoseok's thumping footsteps as he importantly stomped back and forth to show how busy he was nursing the near-dead.

Hoseok was interesting to watch while he grappled with his new responsibilities, which according to him included Kihyun's health and overall well-being. No one could tell him that Kihyun's well-being did not really extend to joint baths and spoon-feeding and, sometimes, touches under the furs.

The Dothraki were simple people. They overruled the bad with the good. Kihyun found that in that aspect, he could be quite simple too.

On nights the wounds still smarted, Kihyun found Hoseok under the furs first. Worked him up. Let Hoseok smear oil over their cocks. Sometimes they rubbed against each other, sometimes Hoseok took care of Kihyun, squeezing him in his hand. Kihyun lifted his hips, thrusting into Hoseok's palm a little harder. He hurt. Hoseok was _strong_ , and so was his grip. It nearly felt like fucking him, but not as good, not as warm.

The mornings after amused Kihyun greatly. Hoseok marched around and fussed over Kihyun more than ever, guilty that he had worn his fatally wounded husband out.

So, Hoseok was a chaotic physician, to say the least. He left mess everywhere and panicked often even when he did nothing wrong. But there was a method to his madness. Although Kihyun sometimes had to bite his tongue so as not to grunt out loud when Hoseok nursed him, coarse fingers tracing the lines that the whip had left on his skin, there wasn't a single task he would either overdo or scant. Hoseok struggled – but his careful nature wouldn't let him do a sloppy job. And whenever he was at his wit's end, he gladly followed Kihyun's instructions.

Two days had passed, and then four, and six, and still Hoseok whined whenever Kihyun attempted to leave the yurt for longer than a pleasant stroll. When Kihyun _did_ venture out, no matter whether it was for two minutes or two hours, he wore a shawl wound around his head to shield the healing gashes from gritty breeze and sunlight.

He quite liked the veil. The Dothraki greeted him as a local when he wore it.

It was all the harder to come home, take the fabric off, and see himself in the reflection of a well-polished copper plate which he used as a mirror. He had to remind himself that his value was no longer measured in his looks.

He had to remind himself he had any value at all.

Over time, it began to work.

It began to work, and only when it did, Kihyun began to respond to Hoseok's questions. He told Hoseok that he was born in a port city in Myr. How many languages he spoke. His family name.

He told Hoseok about the orchards and the day that they had burned; the day that everything had burned. When Hoseok asked who had done it, Kihyun didn't sugarcoat it.

Hoseok tried to hold Kihyun as he opened up one memory at a time, placing small black keys which led to his previous life into Hoseok's hands. But more often than not, Kihyun ended up holding Hoseok rather than the other way around.

There were some parts Kihyun left out; parts he knew he would never unearth. That he had been ready to kill or be killed on that first night. That he had thought himself captive. That he hadn't chosen Hoseok, not until seven months later. He buried these old truths once they lost their worth.

He buried the old Kihyun as well.

He started small.

“The clothes you bought for me,” said Kihyun one day, “I don't think I will wear them anymore.”

“Why?” Hoseok rolled onto his stomach to peer at him. “Don't you like them? Is it not Myrish lace?”

“I like them,” he said. He ran his fingers up and down Hoseok's chest. “But I'm not in Myr.”

Hoseok pondered that. The line of his mouth hardened a little as he grew serious. Too serious. He was thinking about Kihyun's homeland again, and about what had happened to it.

“It's also not the most pleasant thing on earth, to wear lace in this weather,” Kihyun pointed out, braving a smile which was supposed to make Hoseok forget about the Yoo family lands in flames.

It worked.

“Is that so?” Hoseok pulled away in surprise.

“You won't know unless you try.”

Naturally, it was just a joke. A joke to disperse the tension.

So Kihyun gawked when Hoseok actually stood up, naked as he was, and crossed the room with a curious expression. He opened one of the chests where they stored their clothes and picked up a half-sheer garment. It was pearl-coloured and styled as a Pentoshi tokar.

“It feels nice,” commented Hoseok, uncertain, as he fingered the fabric.

“It does.” Kihyun lay on his side to watch him. Golden firelight poured down Hoseok's thighs and back. “It's just not the most breathable material there is. We live in different climates after all.”

“Oh,” said Hoseok.

He hesitantly unfolded the richly flowing garment and slipped it on. He twisted a strip of long, loose fabric around his midsection and held it in place, folding his hands the way a Pentoshi nobleman or wealthy merchant would do it while talking.

“It's a little impractical. It could use a belt or something.”

“Noblemen wear it like this to show the world that they don't need to do manual work. They are so rich that they don't need hands.”

“But what if you want to touch someone?”

Kihyun smiled. “I suppose you have two hands.”

Hoseok turned all the way around. The tokar had see-through sleeves. The frothy part that shimmered across Hoseok's chest was far too intricate to be truly sheer, though in his case it was a close call. He was simply too broad. The lace stretched thin over his pecs.

“It's really tight,” he whispered uncomfortably.

“Take it off,” said Kihyun to put Hoseok out of his misery.

Hoseok was too busy trying to move in the unfamiliar attire to listen to Kihyun's advice. One step, two steps, and Hoseok got distracted by the gently swaying sleeves. He let go of the sash-like piece of fabric that tied the tokar together and waved the sleeves in the air. The tokar unravelled.

Used to walking around bare, Hoseok went on examining the patterns as he padded back to bed and sank into the furs beside Kihyun. The fabric got stuck between his legs and covered his cock under the pearly lace.

“Maybe don't take it off,” slipped out of Kihyun's mouth.

Hoseok looked up quizzically.

The fire crackled as if it was giggling at them.

Hoseok rode Kihyun that night, with the tokar on and open. He moved awkwardly at first and laughed more than he moaned. His laughter turned breathy as Kihyun thrust up into him. There was something about the way Hoseok was dressed, and something about being so close and so far at the same time. Something about being worshipped.

Watched.

They both spilled a tad too soon because it had been a while.

Kihyun would always pull out at the earliest opportunity. This time, Hoseok wouldn't let him. Thighs trembling, he held Kihyun under him. He was leaning on one hand and the sinews in his arm stood tensed up and begging to be soothed.

Closing Hoseok's wrist in an uncertain grip, Kihyun began to make his way up, caressing each muscle. Hoseok clenched around him as the rest of his body did. He let out a whimper. Although Kihyun's cock had softened inside him, the sound pulsed right through it. He kneaded Hoseok's arm a little tighter and continued up to his armpit. There he ran the pad of his thumb over the ticklish curve.

As expected, Hoseok laughed – and the laughter loosened him up. Kihyun felt his own seed trickle down his thighs. He slipped out.

When it got cold, Hoseok rubbed his back and pulled Kihyun to his chest.

In the middle of the night, the lace started to scratch Hoseok and he flung the tokar away with a growl.

 

“You look like a warrior,” remarked Jooheon after a month or so when the swelling had gone completely and all that remained were black glistening scabs.

The two men had managed to steal a moment for themselves without Hoseok's constant scrutiny and fussing and, above all, kisses pressed into Kihyun's mouth over the veil he wore outside.

“Is it the clothes, or the scars?” asked Kihyun as he browsed the market for sweet-smelling incense sticks to get rid of the clumpy scent of balms and ointments that permeated his and Hoseok's bedroom nowadays.

“Might be the hair, actually,” said Jooheon, tugging at Kihyun's locks. “You shouldn't cut it anymore. You've won your first fight.”

“It wasn't my victory. It was Hoseok's.”

“You realize that he would have gone down if you hadn't stepped in, right?”

Kihyun raised a stack of incense sticks under his nose, sniffed, and put it back down.

“Yes,” he said. “I realize that.”

“So. It's your win.”

“Speaking of victories.” Kihyun was quick to change the subject. “Was Gain happy that she beat you that day?”

As expected, Jooheon went sour at the question. His ears glowed.

“Ecstatic,” he murmured, pretending to study a tobacco pouch even though he didn't smoke.

“Was she?” teased Kihyun.

“Yep.”

“Did the two of you celebrate together?”

“That's one way to put it.”

Kihyun's eyes tinkled.

“Are you perhaps still celebrating?”

Quickly checking if the vendor was listening to their conversation, Jooheon shushed him.

Kihyun cackled. He bought what he needed, gave the vendor a polite nod and led Jooheon out of the marketplace. Just as they passed the last stall, a rumble of voices reached them. They turned towards the city gates.

A caravan was passing under the stallion statues. Kihyun saw foreign features and recognized foreign languages; Lysene, both variants of Valyrian, and Pentoshi. Pausing every now and then in the welcoming, balmy shade the statues offered, the caravan trickled in at a tired pace. It was noon, the sun was high, and Kihyun noted that only Westerners who had never been to the Red Waste before could plan their arrival at such an hour.

The colourfully attired caravan continued to pour inside. Neither Kihyun nor Jooheon were fazed by the incomers, seeing that Vaes Dothrak swarmed with strangers at all times. They walked on, roughhousing each other on the way because Jooheon _did not blush_ and Kihyun insisted that he, indeed, _did_ blush pretty bad, and he simply _had_ to know whether Gain liked that about Jooheon, too, apart from making him lose.

“Take him,” Jooheon told Hoseok with a huff when they slipped inside the yurt and found Hoseok sulking by the furnace because they had left him alone.

“Where have you been for so long?” accused Hoseok although his tone immediately gentled. He outstretched his arm for Kihyun to lock their fingers.

“Outside,” said Kihyun because he enjoyed brevity and Hoseok's pouts.

“We saw a Pentoshi caravan,” supplied Jooheon. He made himself at home and sat down next to Hoseok, who was heating up food. “D'you reckon your brother will throw a feast for them? I think I spotted some merchants in tokars in the crowd. There should be some important people there,” he said, already tasting Hoseok's creation.

“I hope he will,” Kihyun cut in. “I could use some fresh air tonight.”

“You shouldn't wander so much! You're still injured!” said Hoseok.

“I still look hideous, but I'm not injured.”

Kihyun was quite curious to know what his skin looked like underneath the scabs. Probably still raw. The scar on Hoseok's back had faded completely thanks to Myrish fire, but Kihyun had serious doubts that his face would heal as easily. After all, the gnarly crust would have flaked off a good while ago if the gashes underneath had already sealed. His brow and cheek bone might forever stay marred. The flesh there had been split too deep.

“See, you still think you're hideous. Your sight is injured,” said Hoseok solemnly while he tugged at Kihyun's sleeve.

Kihyun smiled. He kneeled down and unveiled himself. Hoseok took advantage of the brief moment of inattention and stole a kiss from him, or rather a peck pressed into the corner of his mouth. He planted another one below Kihyun's chin and he would've gone lower if Jooheon didn't bang his spoon on the edge of the furnace in outrage.

“Save this for when I'm gone,” he whined.

“The door is right there,” said Hoseok, deadpan.

“Jooheon can stay for lunch.”

Hoseok whipped around to pout at Kihyun some more.

“You're favouring him!”

“Of course I am. He's taking me to the feast while you're not.”

“We don't even know if there _is_ a feast yet.”

“But if there is one, I know who I'm going with.”

Hoseok wasn't pleased. He grumbled something at Jooheon, who replied with a dash of diffidence which Kihyun's presence usually lent him, to Hoseok's dismay. They continued to bicker in gruff Dothraki while the reason for their little squabble sat next to them, spaced out.

It still happened to Kihyun from time to time – that the sounds around him died down, drowned by a voice similar to his, but shriller; a voice that reminded him of his father. Of his last moments before the fire had taken him. A voice which told Kihyun that he had healed already and it was time to go.

He was distantly aware that he shouldn't be here. He had no excuse to stay anymore. Nothing to say to his defense. And yet when he walked out of the yurt on chilly mornings and looked ahead at the wide, vast plains of the desert, he didn't wish to go.

Staying didn't bring him peace. He had known that it wouldn't. It was the price to pay for choosing Hoseok over his pride and the ghost of his former life.

Ghosts followed Kihyun everywhere he went. Shadowy. Sad. He used to see silhouettes of horses in his dreams. He no longer did. They had disappeared over time and left him be, and Kihyun began to dream of faces instead.

The face of his brother, who had been much lovelier to look at than Kihyun. His mother's face, a little plain except for the heart-shaped widow's peak which he had inherited. His father's profile and sharp side glances which Kihyun had inherited too.

Kihyun knew well they didn't come into his dreams to bless him or his decision, but he welcomed the sight of their worried expressions all the same. Worried was better than dying. He'd rather see them like this than how he remembered them.

He prayed for his family as often as ever, and prayed _to_ them, and asked for their mercy. He would beg for forgiveness as well if he was delusional enough to think that he deserved it.

Perhaps it was still too much, that he asked them to understand. There was nothing else to do, though. Only ask and wait. Kihyun had someone he had promised to stay with, and a promise to the living had to overrule his guilt towards the dead.

A caress broke him out of his daze. He glanced down where Hoseok was tickling the inky paths of his tattoo.

“What is it, _mé slunce_?” he asked, glancing back up.

Hoseok glowed. He loved being called Kihyun's sun.

It was peculiar. When Hoseok called Kihyun _yer shekh atthirari anni_ , he thought of laughter and damp earth and dawns. When Kihyun called Hoseok _mé slunce_ , he thought of sunsets and riding through the desert drunk and of being scorched alive. And yet they thought of the same light.

A light that didn't just shine through the darkness around, but was a part of it.

Hoseok raised Kihyun's hand to his lips. He kissed his way alongside Kihyun's little finger and down the side of his palm. He stopped where the tattoo started.

“Let's go together,” Hoseok murmured.

“Won't you be ashamed of me in front of the guests?”

“And won't you be ashamed to show up with a disgraced husband?” challenged Hoseok in a half-teasing tone.

Kihyun combed a strand of hair behind Hoseok's ear. Musing, he rubbed the choppy ends between his fingers.

“Maybe I will. Maybe I should leave you home.”

A small push would have sent him tumbling down if he wasn't already seated. He propped himself up to steady his posture. He pierced Hoseok with a partly amused, partly warning glance. But Hoseok was too busy grinning and pulling him close, his clutch on Kihyun's forearm firm. A calloused thumb tickled the inner part of Kihyun's elbow.

“If I stay, you stay,” said Hoseok, murmuring that threat against the curve of Kihyun's chin. He moved up and started at his mouth.

Suddenly, the solitude of their little yurt seemed rather tempting.

Until a retching sound reached them.

Kihyun straightened himself up and forced Hoseok to do the same, resting one hand right above his stomach and pressing slightly. They behaved for the rest of Jooheon's visit.

 

There _was_ a welcome celebration that evening, though it could not compare to the roar and joy of the feast which Bora had thrown upon the khalasar's return.

Despite that, it was clear that the khal and his family held the guests in great honour. The celebration took place in the highest stepped pyramid by the main temple. Hyunwoo and his council of advisors and bloodriders rarely ever used the place for events other than strategy meetings, or, as in this case, for representative purposes.

The way the table was set reminded Kihyun of Pentoshi banquets. Lysene wines glimmered ruby and amber-coloured in front him. Lanterns warmed up the partially open space. Faces, stone floors and ceilings, rich Dothraki dishes – everything swam in a washed-out golden sheen. Kihyun took the light in.

Aware that they were coming a little late, Kihyun and Hoseok slipped inside. They sat down on a bench by Hyunwoo's right hand, their thighs immediately touching. Something smelled spicy and delicious, of cloves and fire.

Snippets of songs lay into Kihyun from all corners of the hall, right into his skin, like thick honey.

Kihyun's face was bare. He didn't bother with a veil. The sun had gone down a while ago. That afternoon had also been particularly airless, and the night seemed to be turning out just as balmy.

His face was bare – and so when he looked up, he had nothing to hide his shock at seeing Hyungwon in the spot across from him. Nothing but his sheer willpower. Kihyun returned Hyungwon's stare, glad that the lanterns hung so high above them and that the light came out of them in a layer which erased shades and features and left a man's face as flat as a mask.

Kihyun squared his shoulders and willed his expression to be blank. He gave Hyungwon one polite nod, the gesture barely perceptible to anyone who wasn't one of them. It was returned just as discreetly.

He looked away.

A crawling sensation passed over his half-healed wounds. Kihyun fought off a shiver. He knew that Hyungwon was still boring into him. His eyes went dry, but he kept them away from the opposite side of the table. His world had shrunk on the plate in front of him, on songs, and on Hoseok.

An interpreter sat perched between the foreign merchants and the khal. He droned, translating something Hyunwoo was saying to Hyungwon, who politely replied. The tension creeping up the side of Kihyun's face disappeared, if only for a minute.

It was a blissful minute.

Kihyun wasn't ready to see ghosts outside of his dreams.

Suddenly, he couldn't hear the clack of jugs and knives. The singers. Their tuneful lilts and harsh but harmonious voices. The love or longing or battles they sung about. He was under water. Deafened by a thick mass of emptiness.

He touched Hoseok's belt under the table and hooked two fingers under it.

Hoseok's reaction came sluggish, in phases. He gazed at Kihyun and grinned. His mouth turned lovely. It was wet from wine. Hoseok smiled all the more radiant because of the lanterns and alcohol burning into and through his body. He swayed in his seat to and fro, and finally leaned forward. He got up. Kihyun put a hand on the small of his back to steady him and found Hoseok's skin slick with sweat.

“Lord Chae,” said Hoseok.

Nobody except for the addressed man paid him much mind. The hall was alive with voices. A glance or two flickered in Hoseok's direction, seeing that he towered above the table, but that was all. Someone on the other end of the table was telling a joke, all eyes on him.

“Yes, my lord?” Hyungwon returned in a quieter tone.

“I haven't forgotten your generosity, my friend. Now that you've come to our homeland, it is time for me to repay you.” Hoseok spoke with a rich accent. Thanks to Kihyun and their long, nightly talks, he had remedied his tendency to stress the wrong syllables, but today his words rang accented again, sweetly slurred with liquor. He beckoned to Hyungwon. “Ask anything. Consider your wish already granted.”

A set of strings tugged at Kihyun's head and neck, working him like the inside of a clock until the invisible force stirred him. His better judgement told him to stay motionless, but he didn't listen.

He looked.

Hyungwon's eye sockets appeared carved out under his heavy lids, all black and dead, but he searched for something as he stared at Kihyun. Shadows ran dark down the tired lines in his face.

“If it pleases you, my lord,” said Hyungwon while he slowly gazed back up at Hoseok, “all I shall ask for is to be allowed to take my gift back.”

Hoseok gave him a confused smile. It was quick to appear and quick to fade.

Flutes kept whistling. Hyunwoo went silent at the exchange between his brother and his honoured guest. The khal's sudden silence severed all voices in half. A hush fell over their part of the table, and it spread. Deepened. Until it was ripe enough to be slit open.

Hoseok grunted. He laid one hand over the edge of the table, gripping the wood. The other grazed his hip.

This wasn't the fighting pit, so Hoseok found no whip fastened to his belt. No small scythe.

He found Kihyun's hand instead.

“ _Mé slunce_ ,” murmured Kihyun as he stood up. He put strength to his grasp. “It is a Myrish custom to demand one's gift back in case the goods were damaged or unsatisfactory to the person who received them,” he lied. “I'm afraid I taught lord Chae this rule. It is a mere formality amongst good friends.”

He rubbed a thumb over Hoseok's knuckles. He squeezed.

Distracted, Hoseok gaped at Kihyun, down at their linked fingers, and back at him. He processed Kihyun's words.

He gave a sheepish laugh.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“I still have so much more to learn from you,” Hoseok mumbled. He squeezed Kihyun's fingers back. He whispered in Dothraki, very loudly, to the amusement of his friends and embarrassment of the interpreter, who pretended not to understand. “I almost thought that he wants war.”

Not war, thought Kihyun, but me.

He prayed to the Great Stallion that Hyungwon would keep his silence.

The gods heard him on that day. Hyungwon got up and offered Hoseok a respectful bow. He asserted that any compensation of Hoseok's choosing would be greater than what he was deserving of. The locals started spurring Hoseok on while he puzzled over the best reward for the foreign lord, and the Pentoshi and Lysene strangers soon joined in, glad that the tension had gone. Kihyun stiffly sat back down. His heartbeat hurt.

The khal prompted Hoseok to give Hyungwon his best horse _and_ the horse's weight in gold. Hoseok didn't even blink. He thanked his brother for the advice, sought out Jooheon in the crowd, and, accompanied by the young warrior and two servants, he left for the stables.

Meanwhile, Hyungwon's scrutiny felt sticky on Kihyun's skin. Minutes passed. Kihyun took Hoseok's glass and emptied what was left in it. He waited for a bit before he excused himself to the khal in broken Dothraki, claiming that he was going to follow his husband.

That was what he meant to do, at least. What he had to do.

Once he stepped into the fresh air outside, he realized he was aimless. He looked left and right. Light. He had to get away from the light. The pyramid stood bright behind him, shrouding him in its shine. He glanced over for long enough to see a willowy silhouette descending the stairs, alone.

Kihyun didn't wait for Hyungwon. Legs led him into the temple gardens.

Even there, the ground and a sunken outdoor pool were too sharply lit. In an echo, Kihyun could hear the sounds of the continuing celebration all the way down here. The two buildings, the pyramid and the temple, stood side by side. The fertility pool was placed between them, in the open, shadowed by both structures in daylight and floodlit by them at nights.

Kihyun reckoned he should consider himself lucky that he didn't interrupt any couples who came to pray for a child and make love by the water. Not that anyone would truly mind him.

Candles burned in low bowls and glass lanterns placed around the pool. Some of the candles were there to heat up oil. Kihyun never thought of the sight twice when he visited the place during the day, and he didn't pause now, either. What stilled him in place was Hyungwon's footsteps. He was running.

“Kihyun!” he called quietly.

“In here.”

Hyungwon appeared between the darkened temple's pillars. Shadows hung around him until he crossed the small garden, a flowerless place which smelled pleasantly of lemongrass. He rushed towards Kihyun and took his face into his hands.

The gesture left Kihyun speechless. He wasn't used to being touched anymore, not by people who weren't Hoseok or Jooheon.

They peered at each other for awhile.

Finally, Hyungwon spoke.

“What did he do to you?”

The question didn't make any sense to Kihyun. Not at first. He focused more on the cool press of Hyungwon's fingers. A memory filtered through his mind, shredded and blurred by the time that had passed, but still vivid enough. Kihyun remembered how he and Hyungwon used to measure the size of their hands. How neither of them would ever really get warm, so every contact between them would feel like sharing shivers instead of warmth.

The same old known chill traced his scar, or what was fated to become one.

Only then Kihyun understood.

“This isn't Hoseok's doing,” he said, a strange smile shaping his mouth. “It's from the fighting pit.”

“He forced you to fight?” blurted Hyungwon.

“No.” An even stranger laugh escaped his lips. He could not help it. “I went willingly.”

Hyungwon locked eyes with him. His were big, and filled with distrust.

A particularly loud laughter erupted from the pyramid, the sound reaching them like coins scattering over cobblestones.

“Is that why you asked to have me back?” said Kihyun. He cupped Hyungwon's cheek without realizing that he was doing it, the habit once more stronger than Kihyun himself. “To save me again? Because you thought my new master is unkind to me?”

“And isn't he?” Hyungwon clasped Kihyun's hand, enclosing it completely. He pushed his face into Kihyun's palm. “You look...”

“Like a warrior?” he supplied with some sarcasm.

“Like you've been through seven hells.”

“I don't know about seven, but I've been through a few,” said Kihyun.

“How can you say that so calmly?” whispered Hyungwon, wide-eyed.

“You mean as calmly as you on the day you sold me?”

“Don't say that. That's not... I never meant for _this_ to happen. You weren't supposed to end up here. With him. With a Dothraki.”

“I know. I was supposed to end up with one of your merchant friends. Anywhere but under your roof.”

“I didn't want you to go – at all – but I –”

“But you needed to clear your conscience.”

“That I did. I _did_. I had to, Kihyun.”

“And is it clear now?”

An intake of breath and the hesitant half-sound that followed it told Kihyun everything. The surface of the pool lay beside them unbroken, reflecting light in one solid sheet. Not even wandering insects disrupted the stillness of the water.

“Is that why you're here? To make sure that I'm being treated nicely? Or to see if the person who bought me also beats me?”

Clammy coolness consumed Kihyun as Hyungwon started towards him. Worry made the younger man upfront, and daring, and too awake. He upturned Kihyun's face.

“Does he –”

“No. But if he had, you would have been eight months too late.”

The remark sunk deep. A chill gripped them both.

Hyungwon couldn't dispute that. He was smart enough not to try.

“You are right,” he murmured. “I've never done quite enough when it comes to you, have I.”

“You've done a lot,” replied Kihyun. “But that doesn't erase what you didn't do.”

“I can still try. I can try now,” he said, rushing, rasping. “I will talk to him again. I'll reason with him and take you back. I'll bring you home.”

“I suggest you don't. You want to leave this place in one piece.”

“I won't ask him then.” Hyungwon shuddered. “Let's just leave.”

“With you?”

“Yes. With me.”

“You think I will be your slave again?” Kihyun laughed. Genuine. But dark.

“I've never thought of you as my slave.” Hyungwon fixed his gaze on Kihyun – on _him_ , and not just his scabs, or clothes, or slicked-back hair. “Ever. But you were relentless in reminding me that that's what you were. It was you who kept calling me master. I didn't demand that of you.”

“What else was I supposed to call you? Lover? Love?” He felt himself go empty. “Why would I do that? I wasn't your lover. I was your property.”

“You were my companion,” retorted Hyungwon.

“That's just a nicer title for a slave.”

“I've never addressed you as such.”

“But you owned me.”

“I didn't _want_ to own you. That's why I gave you up in the end. I'd rather –”

“You would rather watch some other man own me. Carry your burden.”

“I'd rather not have you at all – than like that,” Hyungwon finished. He re-traced Kihyun's wound from the bottom up. Kihyun briefly closed his eyes as Hyungwon passed his lids with trembling fingertips. “At least that's what I tried to tell myself. But it's been so lonely.”

“Lonely? Have you missed me, lord Chae?”

Hyungwon winced.

“Don't call me that. You're a lord yourself.”

“I am no lord.”

He was one of the horselords now.

Upon hearing that, Hyungwon's features grew smaller, shrinking into a perfect picture of pain.

The gap between them filled with unvoiced thoughts. Estrangement made them both bolder, but also carefully tender with the other. In a way, they spoke to their past selves. To their past wasted chances.

Kihyun did not know the man who stood in front of him the way he once had, and it was beyond question that Hyungwon did not know him anymore, either. They had shared everything – eons ago. Now they only shared a sense of loss.

Hyungwon's mind must have been rushing down the same path.

“I've missed you, that much is true.” Still holding Kihyun's face and hand, Hyungwon didn't move a muscle so as not to frighten him away. “I miss you. Every day. I miss you beside me. I didn't mean for you to leave Pentos. I planned for you to stay, I just... I knew you couldn't stay with _me_. You hurt. Because of me. All the time. I could see it.”

“So you decided to let someone else hurt me instead.”

“No, Kihyun. No. I had no idea the Dothraki would come,” he said. His voice shook. “The auction... it was a ruse. I only invited my trusted friends, or men I knew were too old to use you anymore.”

“There are other ways to use a person. Selling them, for one.”

Hyungwon hunched over the slightest bit, bearing an invisible weight on his shoulders and back. He tipped his head lower. Their foreheads were close to touching, but not quite.

“I had no idea what else to do,” he said.

He sounded very young. Young, like on that day that he had passed Kihyun's cage with a single timid glimpse, only to come back a moment later and haggle with the slave trader. Like a child who meant well, but had no perception of the outer world; no notion whatsoever of what lay behind the white walls of his villa, unless it concerned silk and spice trade.

“Has it ever occurred to you what you should have done?” asked Kihyun.

A tiny jolt ran through Hyungwon's jaw, and Kihyun couldn't be sure if the younger man nodded, or shook his head “no.” Something told him Hyungwon wasn't sure, either.

“I was so certain back then that I was doing the best I could. I didn't mean to fuck up, I...”

He had never heard Hyungwon swear. Not even in bed.

“Those are some strong words, my lord.”

“Because I _did_ fuck up. I fucked up, and I know it. I know it too well. It's always in my head, how I treated you in the end. I don't think of anything else anymore. I think of you everywhere I go.”

“I used to think of you everywhere I went, too.”

The grasp on Kihyun's hand grew strained, pushing at his bones.

“Listen to me. Please. I won't fuck up this time. I will fix this,” Hyungwon mumbled, still so childish, and removed from the reality of what his promises and actions could cause. “Let me fix this. I will do anything you say. I will follow your lead, like always. Just follow me this one time. Come with me. We can make it far enough tonight if we go right away.”

“I won't go with you.”

Hyungwon must have awaited that response.

“I've failed you once. I won't do it twice,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“I don't trust your promises, my lord. And even if I did, I am already bound to this city. I will live here and I will die here.”

The night was devoid of birdsongs and heavy with faraway voices. Suddenly, Kihyun became aware of his surroundings. He drank them in. The temple, the pyramid, the stray lotus blossoms closing up because of the cold in the corners of the pool. The lighted up yurts scattered all around.

This was the last city on earth that claimed him. He was home here. And as much as it still ruined him to stay, it would ruin him to go.

This was where he could be whole again.

Kihyun could not control the corners of his mouth. They curved upwards even though he willed them in the opposite direction. He couldn't exactly explain it, not even to himself, but he knew right then and there that he would always associate this place with peace. This garden, and this moment. He would associate it with peace although all that had led to it had been anything but peaceful. Although all that was yet to come could turn out to be worse than what Kihyun had already been through.

He was willing to risk it.

It was liberating, in a way, to realize that Hyungwon had some bravery in him in the end. Bravery which unlocked his kindness. It took a good man to stand up to a Dothraki champion, on Dothraki lands, in front of the khal. It took someone who cared.

The offer, however delayed, and however unequal in its nature, was making Kihyun smile wider. Smile with grim amusement. With fondness.

“You see,” Kihyun said softly, “I can't leave him.”

“Why not? Kihyun, by the Many-Faced God, what has he done to you?”

Words trickled up his throat; a surging, happy brooklet. Words he longed to share, but shyly, because saying them out loud would uncover his whole heart.

“He freed me.”

“Freed you?”

“Yes.”

Hyungwon studied him as if trying to ascertain how much madness lurked in his pretty head.

“You look shocked,” commented Kihyun.

“I...” Hyungwon composed himself. “What do you mean, he freed you? If he had freed you, you would have been allowed to go.”

“I am. I won't go, though.”

“What kind of freedom is it, then? How is it different from the freedom I gave you? You still follow him. You listen to him. You're... you're his.” He didn't say _his slave_ , but his eyes travelled to Kihyun's tattoo and back up. “Aren't you?”

“I am his. His husband.”

“His...”

“Husband,” finished Kihyun. He took Hyungwon's hands; held them; held them down. Held them away from his body. Tried to pour some warmth into those fragile, bony fingers. “I am no one's slave or servant. I have the same rights as any other citizen in Vaes Dothrak. You don't have to be worried for me. I don't need your concern, or pity, or the rest.”

“But he bought you,” blurted Hyungwon. “Just as I did.”

“He bought me to grant me freedom. That's where you two differ. I am his – but he is mine. And with him everything he owns.” Kihyun paused. “Right now? I could probably buy _you_.”

As many times before when bitterness was due, and when wrath would be the only catharsis for any other man, Kihyun's voice carried no real hatred. It was as void as the starless sky, except lighter. Light with the knowledge that he did not depend on anyone and their generosity, not even Hoseok's. That he did not have to eat crumbs off the tablecloth and call them affection. That he did not exist to please. Sate. Swallow.

He no longer had to bury his pride. The boundlessness of his own self in this brand new world that lay ahead and around him overwhelmed him, filling him from the core to the tips of his fingers.

He wouldn't have been so quick to forgive had he still been a prisoner, a property. But he wasn't.

“Thank you. For bringing me to him.”

Hyungwon stared at him. Stared hard.

“You don't... you don't love him. Do you?”

“I'm sorry.”

They looked at each other.

What on earth are you apologizing for, Kihyun asked himself, though he knew the reason all too well. Even after eight months of separation, he could read in Hyungwon, or at least in some parts of him. He could see the honesty with which he was entreating Kihyun to come with him.

The heartbreak which came too late, like everything else.

“Go back to your people,” said Kihyun. “And I will go back to mine.”

“I don't want to.” Chuckling, Hyungwon looked up. He was laughing at himself. At his spoiled ways. The glow coming from the pyramid made it seem as if his eyes were welling up. “I don't want to go without you.”

“You've fared well without me until today.”

“I've fared,” said Hyungwon, “but not well. What I said – I meant it. I miss you. I –”

“You shouldn't.”

Kihyun gently let go of Hyungwon and took a step back. The sudden space between them took away whatever remaining resolve that Hyungwon had. He gulped down what he was going to say. Smothered it. He gazed straight at Kihyun, gazed at him to implore him without words. Steadfast, he was taking in the whole of Kihyun's body, his entire presence, flitting from one feature to the other, from the slim wrists to the slightly widening breadth of his chest and upper arms.

He was already trying to memorize him.

“I missed you for awhile,” admitted Kihyun, calm under the scrutiny. He almost sensed it search him, graze his spine. “I had to learn how to forget you, though. Now it's your turn.”

“Kihyun...”

“You were very brave. Up there,” he nodded towards the stepped building that towered above them. “Use that courage if you ever again see someone being mistreated. And the guilt you feel? Use it too. Let it better you. Save someone else, if you truly mean any of what you just said. But I don't need it. Goodbye, my lord.”

 

His lips, a little parched, tingled from kissing Hyungwon's forehead goodbye. It was a symbolic farewell since they would have to meet on occasion until the Pentoshi caravan left.

More than anything, it was a token of forgiveness. Kihyun mumbled one more _I'm sorry_ , and Hyungwon replied with an even smaller _No, I'm the one who's sorry. So sorry_. And then there was nothing left to say.

The songs soaring from the pyramid sweetened the air. A lilt of flutes and zithers flowed towards Kihyun louder now that he sat at the edge of the pool alone, his breeches hiked up and feet planted on the middle step of the stairs.

The water hadn't gone completely frigid yet. It was still too early in the night for that. He wiggled his toes a little.

His head was both full and eerily empty.

It took him a minute or two to realize he wasn't alone after all. He tensed, though the presence in the dark didn't frighten him. The transition between getting lost within himself and knowing he was being watched yanked him out of his inner world.

“Hoseok?” he tried, hoarse from speaking for so long and then being quiet.

Behind him, someone shuffled in place. The tiny sound echoed, telling Kihyun that whoever was observing him stood hidden in the shade of the temple pillars.

Sand squeaked on the stone floor. Hoseok approached him, guarded, and squatted down atop the stairs. An immediate wave hit Kihyun as they looked at each other. Hoseok was significantly more sober than during the feast. His shoulders were hunched forward.

Kihyun breathed in. Chills settled in his lungs.

“How long have you been out there?” he asked. A gentle ocean breeze could shatter his voice in that moment.

“For a bit,” said Hoseok. He glanced down and dipped his hand in the pool, testing the temperature. “I saw the kiss.” He flicked the surface and sent a few drops splashing. “I didn't like it.”

“It was a goodbye.”

Hoseok flicked the surface again.

“I kiss Jooheon the same way,” said Kihyun.

“Jooheon was never your lover.”

“Neither was lord Chae. He was my owner.”

Hoseok stopped flicking his fingers. He wiped his hand on his forearm. Inspecting his fingertips, he shifted closer and sat fully down. His hip pushed against Kihyun's side, digging into it.

“Have you ever thought of leaving?”

“Leaving here? Yes.”

“With him?”

“Also, yes. In the beginning.” Kihyun gazed ahead to avoid the look on Hoseok's face. “I was a stranger here. A stranger in a strange place. With a strange man who had me at his mercy. I don't like being at anyone's mercy, be it yours or his.”

“You don't... you and him, you don't – you didn't –”

“No.”

“Why did you kiss him, then?”

“I told you already. To say goodbye.”

“And that's it?”

“That's it.”

Inching towards the edge of the highest step, Hoseok immersed his feet and swayed them. The water rolled as he moved.

“I'm being silly, aren't I,” he said. He sounded _hopeful_. Like he really needed to be reassured.

And Kihyun reckoned he truly needed it.

His chest constricted at having so much power over a man like Hoseok.

Reaching up, Kihyun tickled the bell that hung from Hoseok's ear. Its tinny little laughter carried across the pool.

“Yes, you are. Very silly,” he whispered.

Kihyun swore he saw something in the way Hoseok's mouth curved to welcome the smallest of smiles. Something so devoted that Kihyun ached. Yearning.

Yearning to be accepted, just as Kihyun had secretly yearned to belong here – belong somewhere. With someone. He had longed to have a place or a person to welcome him as he was.

He had both, as surreal as it still was.

Seeing this wistfulness rule every nerve in Hoseok's body reawakened the same sentiments within him.

“My silly husband,” said Kihyun. He gave Hoseok's earlobe a few light strokes, as if touching a petal.

Hoseok's eyelids grew heavy.

“How do you say _husband_ in Myrish?” he asked out of the blue.

“ _Manžel_.”

“ _Man-zhel_?” repeated Hoseok, uncertain.

Kihyun smiled despite himself.

“Almost.”

“ _Manžel_ ,” Hoseok tried again, lisping a little. He mused for a moment as he rolled the word over in his mouth. “It sounds similar to _mahrazh_.”

“It doesn't sound similar at all,” said Kihyun.

“It _so_ does.”

“You're going deaf, dearest.”

Stilling mid-motion, Hoseok stared at him.

“Dearest? Me?”

“Who else, if not you?”

“But when lord Chae asked if you loved me, you didn't answer him.”

“You heard that?”

“I didn't hear anything, actually,” remarked Hoseok, “because you didn't answer.”

“They say that silence is golden.”

“Well, over here we say that silence is golden, but speaking is silver. Silver is also very valuable,” retorted Hoseok, expectant.

“I prefer silence.” Kihyun felt himself flush.

Hoseok splashed.

Droplets splattered over Kihyun's breeches, glistening cold in the folds. Scowling, he cupped a handful of water.

“Oh, no. You won't,” Hoseok warned.

The next moment, his face was sopping.

They sat there with their breaths bated. Until one of them lurched forward.

In retrospect, Kihyun couldn't tell who started it. Who grabbed the other first. Whose hands began to roam and begged to be let underneath the furs and leather. But he could tell all about the way Hoseok grinned into the kiss, and unbuckled Kihyun's belt, and rubbed his damp cheek all over Kihyun to get him wet too.

Kihyun ran his hands up the nape of Hoseok's neck. Pouring everything into the kiss, every shard of hope, he let himself go. The cords of his thoughts thinned until they turned too stringy to follow. His head was vacant.

Everything was. Everything save for that kiss.

Hoseok undressed him. Shivering, Kihyun wished the night would grow inkier and swallow them. No matter how long he lived in Vaes Dothrak, he would always be shy about touching Hoseok like this. In the open.

He told himself no one could see them. He imagined that the shadow of the temple covered them even though they stood in the light of the pyramid, their silhouettes half black, half luminous. Repeating that little mantra, _no one can see_ , Kihyun stepped out of his breeches and put his bare feet on the stone floor. Naked. He pressed his body against Hoseok, seeking shelter.

And Hoseok gave it. Although his clothes lay on the ground as well, Hoseok wrapped Kihyun up and hid him in his arms.

Things slowed.

Songs and outbursts of laughter slowed too.

“I know I don't say it enough,” Kihyun heard himself say, pulling back to look at Hoseok and allow Hoseok to look at him. “And I know I don't _talk_ enough. But I want to, Hoseok. I want to tell you everything... in time.”

Nodding, Hoseok leaned back in to plant a few pecks on Kihyun's mouth, forcing him to part it.

“You don't have to rush,” he said, voice whispering over Kihyun's lips and turning them both sensitive and numb. “I am here, and I always will be. I will wait. And if... if you ever need to leave – if you ever want to live in Myr again, just – just take me with you. I will go. I will even try to survive on those treacherous ships of yours. Just don't leave me behind. If you ever miss your home and –”

“You're my home. You are all I have and all I care to have.” Choked up, Kihyun took a split second to carry on. He nuzzled the back of Hoseok's neck with tentative fingertips. “I'm blessed because of you.”

Hoseok kissed those words away. Consumed them. Holding Kihyun in a lung-crushing hug, he took step after step, squeezing out the last layer of air that separated them. He pushed and pushed until Kihyun stumbled on top of the uppermost step of the stairs. He sank down, feet plunging into the water. Tearing away from Hoseok to stare up at him, Kihyun backed off some more, descending the stairs. The surface climbed up to his waist.

With a tug, Kihyun got Hoseok to sit down with his thighs apart as he kneeled and submerged himself deeper into the pool.

He felt safer with water lapping at his chest. The chilly sensation enveloping him became his shell. Not even Hoseok could see how hard he was and how his hands trembled.

Pressing his knees together to fit between Hoseok's legs better, Kihyun scooted. He kissed the top of Hoseok's thighs. Made him them spread more. Traced the underside of his thighs and gripped the supple flesh of his ass.

He spread him there, too.

Hoseok inhaled as he realized what Kihyun was about to do.

It had been months. Kihyun had only done it once before, when he had feared that Hoseok might come back from his travels with another slave to warm his bed.

“So you really do this in Myr,” Hoseok joked, a shy undertone weakening the delivery.

After that, he said no more. Only moaned.

As he pulled Hoseok towards his face, Kihyun grazed the taut spot between his hole and crotch with the tip of his nose. Hoseok's skin was so smooth there that Kihyun simply had to kiss it. He began gently – only to gradually suck at the spot harder, opening his mouth a little to let his teeth graze it.

Hoseok buckled. His hips stuttered. Water sloshed around them softly. Other than that and the dying sounds of the celebration, the temple garden was quiet the light-dark.

Dipping lower, Kihyun kissed Hoseok with his tongue, teasing him with the tip and then dragging a long, lingering lick over his hole. It closed and gaped under the contact. A small whine carried across the pool as Kihyun repeated the motion. And a louder one when he did it again.

His mouth was growing hotter while he laved at Hoseok's rim, sensing it go less and less tense until he could slip inside. Hoseok broke, bending forward. His back broadened as he gasped for air. He buried one hand in Kihyun's hair, grabbing the softly waving strands to guide him even nearer.

Kihyun obeyed him without a word. His eyelashes fluttered against Hoseok's skin as he dove deeper, savouring the slight smell of musk and leather and soap that filled his nose. Tongue-deep, he glimpsed up. He saw Hoseok throw his head back, a blissed out moan leaving his lips. Nothing felt cold anymore.

Unable to wait, Kihyun pulled out and looked for the closest bowl of oil. Hoseok didn't like being left hollow, so he tugged at Kihyun's hair. His kohl-lined eyes seared holes into Kihyun.

“Get back there,” he demanded.

“In a second,” promised Kihyun. “Let me...”

Let me in.

Kihyun dropped his gaze and scrambled for one of the bowls. He dragged it closer and let the oil soak his whole hand. Resting his forehead on Hoseok's shoulder, he put two fingers inside him. They glided in as if they belonged there, up to the last knuckle.

Hoseok breathed out hot and hard, lips grazing the crown of Kihyun's head.

“Hurry the fuck up,” he gritted out.

Kihyun had no time to wonder why everyone insisted on using strong language with him tonight. Rushing a little, he prepared Hoseok as well as he would allow him. He massaged more oil into Hoseok's crack and, standing up, spread some over his own cock. It was slicker than usual, merged with water.

“Come here,” said Kihyun. He led Hoseok down the stairs until their bodies touched. “That's it. Put your legs around me.”

Hoseok hesitated.

“You mean... like when I'm riding you?”

“Yes.”

“But I'm heavy.”

Looking for the comfort of Hoseok's closeness, Kihyun put his arms around the small of his back. Hoseok all but blazed.

“The water will carry you,” Kihyun murmured.

He had learned some things about Hoseok. The man who had become his husband bred birds only to free them and he feared ships, but not water. He had killed twenty men and saved one.

He had the power to hurt and scorch, just as he had the ability to bring life back into what was thoroughly lifeless. He was life itself. A true sun.

Bracing himself to bear Hoseok's weight, Kihyun gripped him and guided him up. Voices and people spilled from the pyramid at the same time that Hoseok sank onto Kihyun's cock, taking the thick tip in. The feast seemed to be over, the guests scattering into the streets.

Hoseok paid the commotion no mind. He linked his ankles behind Kihyun's back, groaning a little, spreading around his girth. When he took Kihyun in up to the root, Hoseok cursed. He curled himself closer to Kihyun's chest. They embraced even tighter.

Arms clenched, Kihyun carried Hoseok further into the pool to cover their private parts. Tiny waves caressed his hips and rose to his stomach. Still, he glanced around, chasing shadows in the vicinity of the temple.

Hoseok wasn't having it. He took Kihyun's chin and turned it.

“I'm here,” he said, the tone infinitely more tender than the gesture.

“I know,” whispered Kihyun.

Clutching Hoseok's thighs, he supported his weight as they started moving. The first thrust was tentative, Kihyun barely pulling out and ramming himself as deep as he could instead. Hoseok's mouth hung open.

The second thrust sent waves across the smooth sheen of the surface. It sent the reflected light into pieces. Dozens of golden bridges running, rolling in ripples.

Hoseok met Kihyun halfway, pressing his hips down. His ass jiggled as he ground down onto Kihyun's cock, and Kihyun grabbed it, digging his fingers into the plump flesh. All the while, they faced each other, observing each tiny tremor in the other's expression, owning it.

 _Tink-tink-tink_ , went the bell in Hoseok's ear.

Kihyun stared at it.

Wrapping his arms securely around Kihyun's neck, Hoseok leaned in. His cock squished between their stomachs and mouth parted against Kihyun's ear, he began to beg in Dothraki. Louder, and louder. Kihyun ached at the needy whine in his voice. Water slapped around them more violently. Kihyun thanked all deities that he understood so little, otherwise he would have come as soon as Hoseok started. He was already too close, falling apart with each slam of their bodies.

All control escaped him. Panting, Kihyun lightly nipped at Hoseok's throat. A thick vein pulsed quicker as Kihyun kissed it.

Hoseok stopped begging then.

“ _Anha zhilak yera norethaan_ ,” he choked out.

“ _Miluju tě_ ,” said Kihyun without thinking.

With a hoarse moan, Hoseok spilled into the water. But Kihyun wasn't done; not yet. He thrust harsher, sloppier, turning the pond into a sea. Hoseok grabbed on to him harder. He wasn't loud anymore, though he muttered faster now. Breathless, he rasped, and Kihyun knew that whatever it was he was saying, he meant it.

Kihyun came with a cry that carried over the garden and past it. Halting, he slid out only to clumsily bury himself back inside. He wanted nothing but to stay there. Stay inside. Most of the oil had washed off, but Hoseok was slick with cum when Kihyun glided into him.

Hoseok gave one last whine before he came to his senses. Threading his fingers through Kihyun's hair, he made him tip his head back and look up.

It would be impossible to say whose eyes were hazier at that moment.

“Did you – did you just say –?”

“Yes.” Kihyun swallowed down air. His throat felt clogged. There was no way he would stay silent, though. Not even for a thousand vaults full of silver. “And I meant it, too.”

“Kihyun,” Hoseok moaned, nuzzling into him. The press of his thighs made Kihyun's hip bones ache.

Inhaling the scent of herbs and sweat that clung to Hoseok's skin, Kihyun rested his damp forehead on his shoulder. For awhile, the world was soundless. And when his head cleared and the sounds reawakened, Kihyun found them soothing. This city was his city. The people who wandered by and gave an occasional call or laughter upon seeing the two of them in the pool were his people.

Kihyun had made his peace with it.

“I'm staying.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me [here](https://twitter.com/mrtvej_pes) <3


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